


Contingency

by CoffeeQuill



Series: Our Roots [1]
Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Accidental Baby Yoda Acquisition, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Assassination Attempt(s), Blood and Violence, Bounty Hunters, Corruption, Discrimination, F/M, Flashbacks, Genocide, Gun Violence, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Terrorism, ManDadlorian, Mandalorian Culture, Military Background, Original Character Death(s), Political Unrest, Single Parents, Tattoos, political corruption
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-18
Updated: 2020-07-23
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:40:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 33,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24631708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CoffeeQuill/pseuds/CoffeeQuill
Summary: Din Djarin lives a simple life. Day and night, he works as a bounty hunter, dragging in targets who range from murderous to skipping on debts. It's the same routine day in and day out, risking life and limb to bring home money for the displaced Mandalorians, whose exile verges on its decade anniversary.Then a bounty comes along, with little information but a reward that's too good to be true.Din finds himself risking it all for the child that's come into his care. Burning bridges and building new ones becomes the routine as they flee across the country, pursued by an unknown enemy who will stop at nothing to have the infant. But his peoples' history hangs heavy and a Mandalorian is a Mandalorian. Blood will spill before the battle for the child is over.
Relationships: Baby Yoda & The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV), Cara Dune & The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV), Omera & Winta (Star Wars), The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV)/Omera (Star Wars)
Series: Our Roots [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1754920
Comments: 62
Kudos: 85





	1. Traveling Roads

**Author's Note:**

> My modern AU is here!
> 
> This fic is the events that come _before_ the other fics currently posted in the Our Roots series. While the kid has been named in those works, it won't be used here, as it comes before his naming. Note the tag for graphic violence. This fic's writing is ongoing so tags will be updated as it progresses with each chapter.
> 
> Thanks, and enjoy.
> 
> The [discord](https://discord.gg/UwZuG6N)  
> Follow me on [tumblr](https://coffee-quill.tumblr.com/)

The air smells of rain.

It’s damp and refreshing, filling his senses as he speeds down the road. His windows are down, inviting in the delicious scent of a post-thunderstorm atmosphere, the air warm from summer and leaving behind humidity at a tolerable level. His jacket is off, dropped instead into the empty passenger seat, and all he can hear is the sound of his wheels on the wet pavement as the sun sets ahead.

His right hand sits on the wheel, keeping him in a straight line, sticking to the proper side of the yellow lines even when he hasn’t seen another car in miles. His left elbow is lounging over the open window, feeling the rush of cool air. The clouds linger after the violent storm, and the sunset casts a beautiful orange glow against the grey. Fields of wheat stretch on endlessly in every direction. He drums his fingers against the car door, and as he passes over a bump in the road, his keys sway and the chains bump his leg.

The black Ford explorer, beaten from time, races down the empty road.

It’s been empty for a while. This far into the country, away from the lights and sounds and crowding of the city, the highways continue on in other directions to connect them all. Here it’s peaceful, isolated, far from the brightness and honking of downtown Los Angeles. Instead he feels nothing but the freedom of speeding, with the smell of rain and the breeze shooting by.

It’s perfect, he thinks. It’ll all be shattered in a matter of days. But right now, it’s good.

And then his tire blows.

The right side of his car practically _drops_ into the pothole and he lets out a sharp hiss at the lurch before hitting the breaks, hand squeezing around the wheel. His front tire pops out and the back is quick to follow through before he can even jerk the wheel. He scowls and slows to a stop, tires squealing. That side is noticeably leaning and with the scowl etched onto his features, he’s out and walking around to that side, crouching down.

Flat. There’s a whole damn tear in the rubber.

The back wheel is still intact, at least. His good mood ruined, he walks to the back of the Ford explorer and opens the trunk. He reaches in and grabs two weapons cases, lifting them to stack forward. He pulls up the floor liner, then the plastic panel that hides the spare tire. The humidity suddenly feeling less pleasant, he pulls out the tire, the jack, the iron, all with grumbles beneath his breath. Then, he’s on his knees in the road, wetness soaking through his knees as he pumps the jack and then gets the bolts off, muscles straining.

Sweat forms fast, and he’s sucking in the damp air.

“Motherfucker.”

By the time he gets the spare on, he’s out of breath and sticky with sweat, giving each bolt a final hard _twist_ to secure it. His hands are covered in black grime and dust, his shirt sticking to his back. His shoulders feel strained and he runs the back of his hand over his forehead to wipe away sweat. He takes deep breaths and lowers the truck back down. He grabs it and the iron, packing them away before he retrieves the tire, dumping it in the trunk.

Then he’s wiping his hands on his jeans and leaning against the car, pulling out his phone.

 _Nearby tire shops._ Not that he has much hope. There’s a much better shot that he’s stuck driving around on a spare rather than a decent tire. As the app tries to load on shitty data, he turns and glares in the direction of the pothole, digging his toe into the dirt.

A fuckin’ gold-star bounty hunter, brought down by a _hole_ in the road.

The app eventually loads, and for a brief moment it seems like his luck has turned around again. There’s a shop a few miles away -- closed now, it says, but fuck it, he needs a new tire and sleeping in his car isn’t new. He slams the trunk closed, walks around, and climbs back into the driver’s seat.

Turn the keys, hit the gas, and he’s speeding down the road again.

The tire shop isn’t terribly far. The directions lead him towards it and as he approaches, he sees the barn-like structure, a large wooden building with faded blue paint that looks more grey now. Industrial lights are set up around the area, and as Din pulls up, he sees that the property is large with decent working space, in and around the wheat. Most of the sunlight has disappeared and he parks as he sees a man working at a table full of tools, fiddling with something.

He slips on his black mask and gets out of the car. The man turns and glances at him, but makes no further acknowledgment. Din frowns, standing there, and his right hand curls into a gun motion before relaxing. “Excuse me.”

“You need a tire.”

Din frowns. “I… yes.”

The mechanic doesn’t respond again, continuing to work on whatever object is in his hands as a cool breeze goes past. It rustles Din’s shirt and he frowns, reaching a hand into his back pocket. He pulls out the small black box, the size of a cigarette pack, and holds it up. “I’m a bount--”

“A bounty hunter.”

“Yes.”

The mechanic turns. He places the metal box back on the table and takes a rag to wipe his hands, already dirty from oil. Din watches, fingers curling and releasing at his sides in mimic of a gun, weight shifting between his feet.

“I will help you,” he says.

Din frowns.

“I have spoken.”

He turns and walks into the building. Din watches, then reaches up and locks the car before he follows, a breeze at his back.

“Many others have come through,” the mechanic says. Din doesn’t expect to be handed a cup of tea from an auto shop owner, but the mug is warm in his hands, gentle heat seeping through. He looks down into it for a moment before up at the man, leaning back in the chair. Sitting down, they’re at equal height.

The inside of the building is like half of warehouse and half a proper auto shop. There are lifts for cars on one side with neatly organized shelves of boxes on the other, all under more industrial ceiling lights. The space is bright, and to the side is a small kitchen, almost like an office break room without walls.

“Bounty hunters?” he says.

The mechanic nods. He has his own mug as he leans back against the counter. “They sought the same one you do,” he says.

“And you helped them?”

“I did,” the mechanic says. He takes a drink. “They all died.”

Din stares at him. He shifts with discomfort, hands tightening around his mug. “Well, I don’t know if I _want_ your help,” he says.

The mechanic walks over and takes a seat opposite Din. “You do,” he says. “The coordinates you all carry aren’t accurate. Very close, but they will not get you close enough. I can get you to where you mean to go.”

Din frowns and pulls down the mask before he takes a slow sip. It’s cooled a bit more to not burn his tongue and is smooth and sweet, leaving him a feeling of warmth on the inside. He takes another small sip before setting it aside and pulling the mask back up. “What’s your cut?”

“Nothing. Besides your tire.”

He stares at the mechanic, then shifts in his seat. “Nothing?” he echoes, leaning forward. “I have a bounty waiting for when this guy is brought in. You don’t want any of it for helping?”

The mechanic looks at him, his gaze unwavering. Din gazes back, an uncertain feeling in his stomach, but the man isn’t really _off putting._ In the background is the constant buzzing of the lights, the tea’s warmth constant against his hands, before the man nods. “I do not need a reward,” he says. “The ones before you died. There are men guarding the building where your target stays. They have killed the bounty hunters that came before and will destroy, burn and create as much of a racket as they please. Having them gone is reward enough.”

Din lets out a soft breath then, nodding, and watches the mechanic finish his tea and put the mug in the sink. He leans back, tugging down the mask a little to sip, then looks around at the rest of the garage.

“You’ll stay here tonight,” the mechanic says. His voice is authoritative, no-nonsense, and it rings of familiarity for Din in a melancholic way. “I will fix the tire for you in the morning and take you close enough to your destination. Then, hopefully, you may be fixing this problem for me.” He turns and starts to walk towards the door.

Din watches him go. “That’s kind of you,” he says.

The mechanic stops, then glances back. “You are a Mandalorian,” he says. Din stiffens then, his heart making itself apparent in his chest, a cold feeling already brewing in his chest and arms at the declaration. He waves his hand towards Din’s arm. “Your tattoo,” he clarifies. “It is a mythosaur.”

Din looks at him, then down at his right arm. His black t-shirt clings to him, tight around his muscles, but his sleeves aren’t long enough to hide the black ink on his skin. The bottom half of his mythosaur tattoo peeks out from beneath. _Fuck._ He’s covered in commemorative ink, tats that have their own meaning. But no one can read Mando’a, and his necklace stays beneath his shirt. _Should have covered it._

“I am,” he says, his voice firm, undenying. Despite the cold feeling, he looks the mechanic back in the eyes, jaw tight beneath the mask. “What about it?”

“I have never met a Mandalorian,” he says. “But I have heard stories of your people. The greatest warriors the world has ever seen. Perhaps you shall make short work of these mercenaries.”

For a moment, Din stares at him. It’s… almost a relief. To not have his nationality, his identity, met with outright contempt and hatred. To not be thrown out, told to leave, to disappear. His shoulders are able to lift, but his heart still sits in his throat and he grips the mug. “The stories you heard must be old,” he says. “No one thinks that way of Mandalorians anymore. We’re not exactly welcome anywhere.”

The mechanic is quiet for a moment, eyes searching over Din. “You are welcome here,” he says, voice firm. “I have spoken.”

With that, he turns and leaves, walking out through the door, and it shuts behind him with a resounding _hit._ Din watches, then pulls his mask off to breathe in, drawing the air into his lungs. His hand drifts down to his pocket for a pack of cigarettes that hasn’t been there for a while now. He curses beneath his breath, then downs the rest of his tea before putting the mug on the counter.

He needs to sleep. He’s been up for hours.

He walks back to his truck, content to lie and sleep in the backseat, where he’s grown used to cramped space and seatbelt buckles digging into his back.

_He’s eight years old. The closet is dark, cramped, smelling like dusty old winter coats that were never worn but his mother insists are worth keeping. The explosions outside are terrifying, making things shake, and the windows blew out a long time ago. The sounds keep getting closer, the earthquakes feel more intense, he’s trembling. Somewhere in the house, a door is broken down. He hears his parents’ voices. There’s yelling, screaming, his mother begging. Then, loud bangs. One and two._

_Everything changes._

_He’s nine years old. A loud siren startles him out of sleep and he falls out of bed with a terrified scream, curling in on himself, trembling. Outside, soldiers are running, yelling out orders. He lets out a sob._

_“Din!” Hands grab him. He’s pulled to turn over, held tight, until he’s being dragged forward into warm arms and a warm chest. “Din._ Verd’ika. _It’s okay. It’s just a drill.”_

“Ch… Chaab,” _Din wails, trembling, the language still foreign to his tongue._

_“I know.” His father holds him. He’s dressed in a dark blue shirt, in blue and grey camo pants, dog tags hanging down. His arms are tight, he’s rubbing Din’s back, and the siren has become part of the background now. Din buries his face in his shoulder. “You will get used to it. You’ll run these drills, too.”_

_Din squeezes his eyes shut._

_“You’ll be a very, very good soldier, Din.”_

He wakes before the sun, but not on his own. His eyes peel open and he stares blearily at the seat in front of him, a crick in his neck and legs aching from being curled. He’s filled with nothing but the _dread_ of waking up in a car and he shifts to roll over onto his back, staring up at the ceiling, hit with both the quiet of the car and the faint noises from outside. He takes a deep breath, tilts his head to get two satisfying _cracks_ from each side, then sits up. His back cracks, too, and his knee. God. _He’s old._

The mechanical hisses from outside draw him out. The garage’s large double doors are open, and inside the mechanic is working under the hood of a massive green tractor, standing on a step stool to reach in. Din stretches as he walks, yawning, and drags up his mask to cover up beneath his eyes. He steps into the garage, watching.

“You’re awake.”

The mechanic doesn’t look at him, hands working under the hood. Din shifts his stance, hands shoved into his pockets. “I am.”

“Good. I will fix the wheel.”

Din nods, and he walks back to the car. He does a quick sweep of the seats to be sure there’s nothing incriminating -- he keeps it clean. And the mechanic already knows he’s a bounty hunter, so the stacked gun cases and explosives shouldn’t be that much of a surprise. But he still throws a blanket over the cases in the back before he’s in the front seat, pulling the car into the garage.

Once the car is jacked and the mechanic is getting the spare off, Din leans back against the counter to watch with a generously provided cup of coffee. He sips it, then pulls out his phone and begins the look through it. His lock screen is a Mandalorian flag, fluttering in the breeze against blue sky, a picture he’d taken himself at home. He taps in a passcode -- Touch ID, though convenient, has never been turned on. His home screen is a candid of himself, gear on and rifle in his hands, flanked by two others in his squad, laughing together before a mission.

Din looks at it for a moment. Their faces are covered in blue masks, sunglasses on, helmeted. Scrambling facial recognition software in the cities. But he knows they were laughing.

He shakes his head and opens his notes app.

The details of the hunt are few, frustratingly so. He’s got apparently useless coordinates, the most basic of details, a fob that doesn’t do shit until he’s close, and a reward he can’t refuse. He scowls at how short his list of information is.

 _Male._   
_50 years old._ _  
_ CC: undisclosed in full.

He doesn’t know what the guy looks like. He doesn’t know what he’s done. Most bounties give that info; that’s what the pucks do. An image for reference in identification, to show authorities that the guy he’s sticking handcuffs on is the right guy. To know what the hell kind of person he’s going to be dealing with -- if it’s a hardened criminal, a debt runner, or some bratty nineteen-year-old who made off with daddy’s money and needs to be dragged in unharmed.

_Male, 50 years old._

It’s fucking bullshit.

_What else can you expect from Imps?_

God, he wants a fucking cigarette. He closes his eyes, pulling his cap lower on his face, scowling beneath the mask. He’d sat in front of their Armorer and stayed dead silent about where an ingot of beskar with an Imperial sigil had come from. And she hadn’t pressed him. Reclaiming the metal was more important than where it came from.

But doing the dirty work for an Imp? Putting his life on the line for a fucker who wore that sigil with pride, risking a source of income for his people, hunting on less information than a receipt from the drugstore?

 _Go fuck yourself_ had been on the tip of his tongue until the beskar came out.

And Din feels the cruel irony of an Imp warlord seeking out a _Mandalorian_ for help. After all the shit that had gone down in Mandalore, the horrific things that had happened without a single ounce of accountability, the war crimes forgotten even after their fall and the rise of the New Republic -- an Imp was asking a _Mandalorian_ for something.

The universe has that sense of comedy.

The coffee is almost cold in his hand now and he takes a gulp of it. He’s just finishing it as the mechanic begins to lower his car back down to the ground, his spare lying on the ground. Din puts the cup down, then walks over and grabs it up before walking around to the back. He opens the trunk and pulls up the cover, the panel, putting the spare back into its spot and securing it. He closes the door and the mechanic is stepping back from the jack’s controls, instead reaching a hand out to his front door. There’s small patches along each door, difficult to place until you’re close. Black duct tape placed over bullet holes, occasional paint jobs to disguise them as best he can.

“Plenty of damage,” he remarks.

There’s beskar plates fitted beneath the exterior, blocking the bullets. “I manage,” he says.

The mechanic makes a suspicious hum, but doesn’t seem much concerned. “I will drive to an area near the building you are looking for,” he says. “You will follow. I will tell you how to get there from that point.”

“Thank you,” Din says. He reaches into his pocket and takes a wad of cash, counting out the money, before handing it over.

The mechanic gives Din a few minutes more to stretch, wake up, and down some more coffee. His pounding headache is treated with some pain meds after scrounging for the pill bottle between the seats. His neck won’t stop aching from his sleeping position, but he hasn’t got much time for that. Instead, he’s opening his trunk and pulling things out.

He slips on his side holster, hidden beneath his jacket, and one that straps to his belt and around his thigh. He checks both for ammunition, is satisfied, then grabs his pulse rifle.

It’s… absolutely his prized possession. It took him years to slowly build himself, careful in seeking out the parts necessary to do so. The tech is new, terrifying, and completely banned by the New Republic. Using it in front of authorities is surely enough to get him arrested as a terrorist. Somehow, it’s surprising his nationality hasn’t done that already.

He makes sure the rifle is loaded. Slams the trunk shut, places it in the backseat. Whatever the hell is ahead, he’ll be ready for it.

The mechanic gets into his own truck. It’s a beat up old pickup, with faded red paint and scratches along the side, but it pulls out of the lot and towards the road. Din starts up his own engine and pulls out of the garage to follow, keeping a distance. He pulls up his given coordinates on his GPS, just as a precaution. The mechanic hasn’t set off any alarms yet, but being led by a stranger to somewhere like an asset’s location isn’t the greatest thing to bet on. He shifts his hips, feeling the holster against his thigh. In reach. Loaded. He’s got plenty of gas to ditch with.

The road is quiet. He keeps his windows up, a calming atmosphere, despite the fact that he’s driving to grab the most expensive bounty he’s ever accepted. He doesn’t reach for the radio. Just watches the blue truck in front of him, following behind, making one turn and then another. He glances at his GPS and bites his lip. The mechanic was right -- the computer wouldn’t have gotten him this close.

Or, he’s being led straight into a trap. In which case, he’ll be disappointed in the deterioration of his sense of judgment.

They drive for a decent amount of time. The road goes for several miles before a turn, and then another. All the while, they’re surrounded by wheat, until eventually, it turns into trees. The branches sway with the breeze, and he’s almost in a trance of staring at the trees when the mechanic’s brakes light up red. Din eases his foot onto his own brake and they pull over to the side of the road. He puts himself into park, then gets out. He walks up to the mechanic’s window, who has lowered it and looks at him.

“Continue down this road,” he says. “A turn on the right -- the only turn there is. That will take you straight to the building. You may not want to take the car there if you don’t plan on announcing yourself.”

Din pauses, thinking, then nods. “Thank you.” He shifts his weight before he shoves a hand into his pocket. He pulls out his wad of cash and holds it up.

The mechanic shakes his head. “I told you,” he says. “Getting rid of the men here is payment enough. I will not take more. This place is peaceful and has seen more than enough violence.”

Din frowns. “Why guide me here?” he asks. “Me trying to get the asset -- it’s only going to be more violence.”

“Perhaps some more violence is what’s needed for peace,” the mechanic says. “It is something I will accept. You are a Mandalorian. I will not believe the words of the Empire about your people, not when you have not reflected them.”

Din feels a warmth in his chest. “Thank you,” he says, his voice soft. It’s… the nicest thing an outsider has said to him. “That… means a lot.”

“I have spoken,” the mechanic says with a nod.

Din nods back and steps away. The car’s window begins to rise and he walks back to his own vehicle as the mechanic turns around, driving past. Din reaches for his door, watching as the pickup travels down the road before making a turn and disappearing. 

It smells different here. The scent that fills the air is… wet, but mixed with something. He frowns to himself, slowly opening the back door. It’s burning. Something is burning. He grabs a pair of gloves from his jacket pocket and slips them on. He pulls the mask off, just for a moment, to breathe and relax. Rolling his shoulders, shaking tension out, before slipping it back on and pulling his cap low. He takes the rifle, slips it around and over his back, the strap sitting snug against his chest. Explosive charges clipped to his belt. A silencer to fit on his pistol. He runs his hands over his jacket, feeling the beskar plates that sit inside it, adding some weight as well as protection. He zips it halfway up.

It’s cool out. The burning scent is thick in his nostrils now, unable to be ignored -- but it’s a general scent, not like burning rubber or food. More like wood, he thinks, as he checks his gear again. Nearly forgot a knife slipped into his boot. He runs a hand over his back pocket to check that he has the tracking fob.

It beeps, quiet, but the signal is stronger than before. The guy is around here. The building might be a trap, sure, but the mechanic hasn’t led him into one. Taking a deep breath, he shuts the car door.

Time to hike it on foot.

He walks down the road, boots crunching against the dirt, and he follows it with. Thick trees are gathered on either side, almost creating a tunnel, and one side has a wall of shrubbery. True, like the mechanic said, the road simply goes straight and then ends in a corral panel before leading out to open field. Before it is a turn leading to the right, the only possible alternative, and Din puts his back to a tree as he pauses around the corner. He draws the gun from his side holster, flicks the safety, and then steps out with it raised.

No one is there, and he can let out his breath.

The road continues down in a corridor of shrubbery, made of dirt with clear tire tracks from previous vehicles. There’s an iron gate to block it all, but it’s wide open now, foliage growing over the bottom and around some of the bars. In the distance, he sees the building -- it looks like an old warehouse from here, with plain grey panels for walls and some windows. The area around it is plain dirt, concrete laying just around the building’s perimeter. There’s a few cars and trucks parked around, and he can see the mercs walking around.

There’s a fire burning in a pit in the center. Most of the mercs he can see are gathered around it, others lingering together in different spots. Din watches them all, analyzing, flattening himself against the wall of shrubbery. A plan is already starting to formulate in his mind. _Lots of explosives, lots of bullets._ The only style he likes.

Quickly, he comes to the other side of the road, and finds a gap in the wall that he can fit through. Branches scratch at his jacket, but leave no mark. He walks beneath the trees, promptly muttering a curse when he walks through a spiderweb, but comes to one of the trees lining the property before moving back by one. The branches are low and he’ll be close enough to see without being obvious. He backs up a few feet before a running start. His foot hits and plants on the bark before kicking up, grabbing a branch, and wrenching himself up and over.

He gets up and straddles the branch, letting out a huff of air. God, he’s _really_ not a twenty-year-old anymore. He gets up and starts to climb, the branches closer here, easier to navigate. He plants himself on a higher branch, looking out at the property, much closer now.

He counts… five. Six. Seven. Thirteen in total, some difficult to spot behind vehicles. But these are the ones just outside. The windows of the building have far too much glare for him to be able to see inside, the open doors at too small of an angle. There could be a hundred more to rain down hell upon him for stirring up the hornets’ nest.

He grumbles. He knows well how to siege a building. A secure one, filled to the brim with armed guards. But this… he’s on his own. He has no squad to back him up, no firepower, no detailed layout or even knowledge of who the hell his target is. He shifts on the branch, pulling out the fob. It’s beeping a little faster, just barely noticeable, but this _is_ his target. He reaches for his pistol and the silencer, beginning to screw it on, and sighs. There’s no _perfect_ way to do this. Only a least deadly way. He isn’t completely sure which that would be.

But he’s a _Kyr’tsad Mando’ad._ He’ll manage--

Startled yells shake him out of his planning and his hands freeze, looking up. The mercenaries haven’t spotted him, but instead are looking towards the road leading in. They’re pulling guns from their holsters, running to get behind cover while still aiming. Din frowns, then stands and makes the jump to the branch of the next tree to look.

A man walks into the lot. He’s dressed in grey, the sleeves of his shirt a dark rustic red, and he’s strapped to the nines with gear. Thick ammo belts cross his chest, an Uzi machine gun held in one hand and a pistol in the other. There’s multiple explosives strapped to his chest, across his back and front on top of a bulletproof vest, with certainly more things hidden. Din just watches with squinted eyes until the man walks forward enough to see the back of his jacket. 

“Oh, no,” Din groans.

Across the back is printed in white block letters, _InterGalactics._

Din scowls and gets up. “Bounty droid,” he mutters, before beginning to climb across the tree.

“Subparagraph sixteen of the Bondsman Guild protocol waiver compels you to immediately produce said asset.” The droid’s voice echoes throughout the space, met with silence, only the trees waving with the breeze.

 _They don’t care, you dumbass,_ Din thinks, irritation building.

There’s only a brief standoff until a merc pulls his gun, firing from the hip, but the droid is faster. He aims with the pistol and shoots the merc, finding its mark, and the lot explodes into chaos. The droid is faster, the Uzi making a _bang_ with every shot fired, finding its marks. In a matter of seconds, the entire lot of cleared of mercs. But there’s an alarm going off from somewhere, a loud siren as the doors of the warehouse all slam shut.

The siren is loud. Pulsating. For a moment, Din’s body freezes, and a chill runs down his spine. He takes a deep breath to calm himself. “Droids,” he mutters instead.

“Subparagraph sixteen of the Bondsman Guild protocol waiv--”

The droid is walking towards the firepit, arms relaxed but guns still pointing forward. Din makes it to a branch extending over the hedge and takes a step before leaping over. His boots hit the ground and he lets himself roll forward over a shoulder, taking the impact off his feet, coming up to a knee before he’s standing, pulling his gun. “IG, stand dow--”

The droid turns in an instant, firing. The bullet hits his side but deflects off the beskar plate in his jacket, sending him stumbling back, and he trips before landing on his back beside the hedge. He lets out a groan and pushes himself up. The droid lowers his gun, but Din is pulling the nearly crushed fob from his pocket. “I’m _in_ the Guild!” he hisses, holding it up. “Asshole!”

The droid frowns at him. “I thought I was the only one on assignment.” The deadpan tone and the ski masked face staring back at him has always been fucking unnerving.

“Makes two of us.” Din gets up and walks to the pickup truck nearby, shoving his back against it for cover. “So much for the element of _fucking_ surprise.”

“The bounty is mine,” the droid says, apparently unconcerned about standing in the open. “I’ve issued the writ of seizure. I will need your fob.”

 _Oh, fuck off,_ Din thinks, but he thinks fast before adjusting the gun in his hand. “Doesn’t mean anything,” he says. “You’re still empty-handed. Writ of seizure doesn’t apply until you’ve got the asset. Right?”

The droid is silent for a moment. “Right.”

“Better suggestion. We split the reward.” He won’t. The hell can anyone else use beskar for, anyway? It’s Mandalorian iron, there’s a method to forging it so it’s actually useful. The best thing most people can use it for is selling for cash. That’s just an insult.

“Acceptable.”

“Great. Now let’s get out of harm’s way and form an actual _plan,_ okay?”

The droid starts to walk over. “I will get the credit for taking in the asset,” he says, stopping just before the truck.

“Can we talk about this later?” Din snaps.

There’s a moment of silence. “I will need an answer, Mandalorian, before I procee--”

Din glances down to see his mythosaur pendant has come loose, just as there’s a _bang_ and the droid stumbles forward, hit square in the back of his vest. “Shooter,” he says, still almost no alarm in his voice. Din looks over the bed of the truck, then sees the man on top of the warehouse roof, aiming. He throws his pistol up and shoots, the merc letting out a scream as he falls off.

Then the doors fly open and mercs pour out. “Fuck!” Din hisses before ducking behind the truck, adrenaline spiking.

The mercs spread out, hiding behind cars and trucks, popping out to shoot. The droid is up again and shooting, taking down men, while Din aims as well. Wordlessly, they begin to flank, starting to work their way around the right side. He ducks out of the way, bullets whizzing past his head, but there’s a distinct switch in him.

Survival instincts. Decades of training that haven’t gone away, still commanding him, so ingrained that it stays even where the language has begun to slip. Taking a deep breath, he grabs the flashbang off his belt, steps out from behind cover, and pulls the pin before he throws it. “Banger!” he yells to the droid before ducking down again.

The flashbang explodes, leaving behind smoke, and he’s slammed with ringing in his ears. He stumbles for a moment, feeling disoriented, before he’s picking himself back up and leaning on the car for balance. The mercs have turned away, some dropping guns to cover their ears, more affected with proximity. Din aims and takes down one, then another and another, even as the ringing goes on.

_“Keep going!” The sergeant’s voice is faint in comparison to the ringing, and Din is panting, scrambling to start climbing the wall. He already feels sick. This pushes him closer to that line, senses blocked as his squadmates follow._

The mercs keep falling. Din’s heart is panting, the ringing begins to fade, and they’re working their way closer to the warehouse. The droid is an endless stream of bullets, reloading again and again as he needs to. Hands seize Din from behind and he spins around, pistol-whipping the merc before slamming his heel into his gun and shooting through his chest. Another comes from the other side and he drives his elbow into his throat, bringing his pistol up to shoot. His wrist is grabbed, wrenched, he hisses as the pistol drops and fires a bullet into the tire of the car. _Fuck._ The punch socks him across the face, and Din feels confusion grip him as tears form. _Fuck._

He drops to the ground. The merc’s grip on him pulls him along, suddenly flailing to not fall on him, and Din bases himself before kicking into his knee. The merc howls and falls to the ground beside him, and Din grabs the knife from his boot before he rolls on top of him. He drives the knife into his throat, and the merc chokes, staring up at him. Din pulls it back, getting to his feet again, panting. He shoves the knife back into its holder, snatches his gun, and leaves the merc to choke on his own blood before he’s shooting again.

The droid is almost beating him to the door. Din throws himself against another car, this time one impounded with cement blocks instead of wheels. He takes deep breaths, then steps out from it. Then, he freezes. “Fuck.”

A merc stands in the doorway of the warehouse. He’s holding an RPG, with an obvious pale green head and orange back. It’s aimed at the vehicle, and Din is already turning. “Move!” he hisses.

There’s a whistle as the rocket fires. Din can’t throw himself behind another car before there’s an explosion, throwing him forward, and he hits the ground with a groan. Cursing beneath his breath, he pushes himself up. _Fucking hell._ His ears are ringing again. His body aches. He turns to look over his shoulder, getting to his hands and knees, sees the car charred and burning.

Past it, the merc is reloading the rocket.

Din reaches for his belt.

He sets off the timer on a charge and throws it as far as he can. The merc looks up, eyes widening, as it hits the wall of the warehouse and rolls nearby. At the same time, the droid pops out, lifting his guns and unleashing a storm of bullets. Din watches as the merc falls back against the building, slammed with the bullets, until the charge blows and he’s on the ground. Unmoving.

The lot is quiet.

Din takes a deep breath, giving himself a moment to check over his guns, before he’s moving. He keeps a pistol in one hand, drawing his bloodied knife in the other, crossing them in a defensive position. “Let’s go,” he mutters to the droid. He starts to walk towards the warehouse. “Check your corners.”

The area stays quiet. Din steps towards the main double doors, placing one foot inside, slowly beginning to creep in. His eyes dart around the room. It’s a large, open area, once filled with shelves for merchandise but now moved. It appears to be lived in. One area is like a rec room, with a TV set, some gaming consoles and couches. The other end, there’s a white sheet put up to divide the area. It flutters with the breeze, and Din can see bunk beds with various personal belongings.

For a moment, he’s concerned that the target may have been killed. But he reaches for the tracking fob and finds it blinking still. He gets a rush of relief and holds it up. He guides it around the room, but it only grows stronger when it’s straight ahead. Letting out a breath, he begins to walk forward. The beeping increases. He frowns. What’s ahead is only a group of shipping crates, stacked together and closed with a tarp thrown over them. But beside it is a door, and he heads for that instead.

He puts a hand against the push bar, then sees that the beeping has decreased. He frowns and turns, stepping past the droid, and looks at the crates again. “The hell?” he mumbles before walking to the one on top.

The beeping is insistent. It acts as though he’s standing directly in front of the asset. _Male, 50 years old._ Din frowns to himself, but he reaches and grabs the tarp, taking it off. He holds it up to the crate in front of him. The beeping manages to increase until it’s near impossible to tell the sounds apart from each other. Din stares at it, then at the droid.

The droid only looks at him, no indication of any thoughts. Din places the fob back in his pocket before he takes the top of the crate. It isn’t nailed down. He lifts it, sets it aside, and they both lean in.

“What the hell?” he whispers.

What stares up at him is a baby. A baby, an _infant,_ no more than a year old. The child looks at him with wide brown eyes. He’s naked but for a diaper, which doesn’t look or smell like it’s been changed. He’s grabbing his toes, surrounded by bits of straw and ragged brown blankets. The fob won’t stop beeping. Din feels his stomach twist as the baby holds his gaze, squirming about.

“They said 50 years old,” he whispers. He only looks… six months? Somewhere close to that?

The droid lifts his pistol without a word. The baby’s eyes drift to the droid, staring into the barrel, no sign of fear. Din’s stomach shifts with nausea. “No,” he snaps, throwing a hand out to shove it down. “We bring it in alive.”

“The commission was specific,” the droid says, looking at Din. “The asset was to be terminated.”

Din’s hand slips off. The droid flicks the safety, the sound keeping the baby’s attention, but his gaze drifts back to Din.

_The gun is shoved in his face. He can only stare at the man about to kill him, only squeeze his eyes shut and turn away from what he can’t escape._

There’s a loud _bang._ The droid makes a choked noise before he collapses. Din slides his gun back into his holster, and the baby flinches at the loud noise but doesn’t cry. Din steps closer, looking into the box, and the baby coos as he looks up. His heart is pumping. Slowly, he reaches a hand in, offering a finger. The baby stares. Din beckons for him to grab it.

The child reaches for him.


	2. Homeward Bound

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He was fucking lied to. _50 years old._ He’s only just realizing he was manipulated and it fills him with rage.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the slow update. Life has thrown... a few roadblocks in the way and my writing has definitely suffered for it. Hoping to get back on track soon with all my other stuff.
> 
> The [discord](https://discord.gg/UwZuG6N)  
> Follow me on [tumblr](https://coffee-quill.tumblr.com/)

Din’s hands grip the wheel. The chill gripping his spine refuses to go away. No matter how hard he tries to turn off his emotions, to not  _ care,  _ to get rid of this sensation—it will not work. It refuses to.

The infant will not allow it, simply through his presence.

He’s calm. The disgusting diaper has been tossed, his bottom wiped clean with a wet paper towel—as gentle as Din could manage. More wiping grime off his face, his hands, where dirt has built up from clear neglect. Now, he’s wrapped up in the blanket that usually hides Din’s weapons, sitting in one of the smaller crates that Din took from the warehouse for an impromptu car seat. He’s able to sit up with the wall of the crate at his back, old enough to lift his head, looking around with big eyes and occasional coos. The brown blankets are wrapped around his legs, covering him up.

Din feels like he is floating out of his own body as he works the seatbelt around the crate to hold it. He slowly takes off his gloves, his jacket, to let his body breathe as he turns the car on. As he turns them around, beginning back down the road, putting the mechanic’s address back into the GPS. Some part of him knows that he should go back to the Guild. He has the asset in custody. The next part of his job is to return the asset to the Client, make the tradeoff, walk away with his reward. That’s what he’s done for the last eight years. Never has he faltered, hesitated. He brings the target in.  _ Always. _

But the youngest asset he’d ever tracked was a sixteen year old kid, a runaway who’d snuck tens of thousands out of his parents’ account before running off with the intention of joining a gang. Din had found him at a gas station, offered a ride, nearly gotten it done with ease until the kid finally figured out what was what. And that had led to punches, spit out insults and attempts at grabbing the wheel. But Din had gotten him home to worried parents and a decent pay.

But that teenager had had an agenda. Sixteen was old enough to make those decisions and know the consequences. The target sitting now in his passenger seat  _ isn’t even sixteen months. _

He drives slow. Certainly the speed limit. He tells himself it’s to be sure the kid is safe, not jostled around, but his own thoughts are racing.

He was fucking lied to.  _ 50 years old.  _ He’s only just realizing he was manipulated and it fills him with rage.

_ Who sends a Mandalorian to hunt a child? _

He reaches the garage at midday. The mechanic is nowhere in sight, but Din can hear the sounds of tools and parks in the same spot as before. For a moment, he just sits there, taking a deep breath before he moves. The baby makes a coo, and Din looks over. The kid is staring at him with big brown eyes. He’s got a head of dark brown hair, not really grown yet but there. In better light, Din can see how pale and malnourished he looks.

Is malnourished the word? He isn’t sure. He’s somewhat certain that babies are supposed to have a lot more fat on them, but this one is alarmingly skinny. He isn’t sure if that will reflect on his hunting skills in any way, but he pushes those thoughts away as he unbuckles himself and the crate. He pushes his door open, grabs the crate, and lifts it as he climbs out. The baby inside coos, looking around as he starts to suck on his fingers. Din grips the crate and starts walking towards the garage.

He steps into the cool shade. The mechanic is inside, working again beneath the green tractor’s hood. He doesn’t look at Din, but his footsteps may have given him away. He turns to trade his tools, sparks flying from the machinery. “I thought you were dead,” he says.

Din doesn’t speak.

Instead, the mechanic turns to see the baby.

Neither Din nor the mechanic is completely sure how old the baby is, but six months or older seems to be a good guess. As Din gets another cup of coffee—with a kind addition of whiskey to spike it—they watch the little one crawl about, exploring the floor with an enthusiasm that only an infant seems capable of.

The mechanic doesn’t have any clean diapers on hand. Not that Din could really expect any when the man fixes machines and not messes like this one. But he does have a cloth that wraps around the kid like one and is pinned at the back. He doesn’t seem to mind, and Din is watching him for signs of discomfort. He takes a deep breath, then a long gulp of the spiked coffee.

“You’re going to turn it in,” the mechanic says. There’s no  _ judgment  _ in his voice, but it prompts Din to take another sip. He watches the baby crawl, stopping to turn his head and look at the mechanic as though knowing he’s being talked about. Din lets out a sigh and pulls his cap off, running a hand through his hair before putting it back in place. “Such a small thing, to cause so much fuss.”

“They didn’t tell me it was a child,” Din says.

The baby stares off towards the far end of the garage, then turns himself around with a coo and looks at Din before starting to crawl back over to him. He certainly knows how to crawl, but in the typical infant sense of slapping his hands against the floor and shuffling on his knees. He passes Din’s chair, still looking around with big eyes.

“Better to deliver it alive, then. It looks starved.”

Din looks up. “Do you have anything it could eat?”

The mechanic nods and gets up. He turns and walks to the refrigerator at the end of the counter as Din turns to watch the child. He’s stopped, lying on his belly as he looks out at the lot. The sky is a brilliant blue, some birds flying past. Din wonders for a moment if the baby has ever  _ seen  _ the outside. It gives him a nauseous feeling to think that an innocent being might have spent its life in that crate, never exposed to sunlight and nourishment. Children are precious things. They’re the future.

_ It isn’t your problem.  _ Din takes a deep breath and turns away.  _ You took the job. _

He can’t get attached or emotional about targets. It isn’t possible. He was taught detachment before, he knows how to shut off his emotions. He knows how to swallow any qualms about what he’s doing. And when he joined the Guild, well, it was already their policy to do so.

But while the Mandalorians taught him to build bombs and detonate them to serve the cause, they still taught him to care about children, too. That was their culture. He lives now because they took him in.

The emotions war inside him.

The mechanic doesn’t have much in the way of suitable baby food, but he does have bananas and water. Din jumps for that -- mashing it is easy enough. The mechanic returns to his work for the time being and Din finds himself standing at the counter with a fork, mashing the banana into a bowl. He adds some water, working at it until it’s creamy, and he walks over to his chair. “Kid,” he says, looking around. Then he pauses and steps away from the counter. “... Kid?”

The baby is gone.

For a moment his heart threatens to leap out of his chest and he ducks to glance under any of the vehicles before around the corner of the counter. “Kid!” he calls, and he runs outside into the sunshine. The lot appears empty, and his stomach is twisting into a knot. How is he going to lose a  _ baby?  _ He’s never lost a target, how is a crawling  _ baby  _ going to—

He hears giggling from the side. He sprints around the corner and comes to a quick stop. The baby is lying on his belly in the dirt, giggling, paying no attention to Din but to the frog sitting in front of him several feet away. As Din approaches, the frog hops away once, then twice.

“Nuh…  _ Nuuh!”  _ the baby cries out, face twisting up with displeasure. He tries to crawl after the frog, all dirty again, and Din frowns before stepping to pick him up. But the baby collapses back down to his belly and lifts his hand out. Din just gets his hands beneath his arms to lift. But there’s a  _ determined  _ expression on the baby’s face and movement out of the corner of his eyes catch his attention. He turns and stops, staring.

The frog is rising into the air.

“What the hell?” he whispers.

The frog hovers a few feet off the ground, trying to hop every few seconds but without success as it doesn’t move in the air. Din watches it, all the breath stopping in his chest at the sight of something then isn’t  _ possible.  _ He looks down at the baby, who has as determined an expression as is possible for an infant, squinting at the frog as it begins to rotate in the air. Then, the baby’s eyes begin to close and the frog drops as the child starts looking sleepy.

Din stares as the animal hops away in a hurry. He looks down at the baby, who blinks with exhaustion, and hurriedly picks him up to settle against his shoulder. “What the hell?” he whispers a second time, slow in walking back to the garage. He comes back to the chairs, and sees the mechanic look over without asking any questions. It’s a relief. Din doesn’t know how to explain it. Whatever he just saw, it’s…

He must be tired.

The kid didn’t…

He didn’t.

Din places him down on the counter, and for a moment, just watches him. The baby sits, leaning forward with one hand on the counter for balance as two fingers go in his mouth. “Don’t—“ Din sighs, reaching out to pull his dirty hand away. The baby whimpers, making a squeal like a whistle as he stares at Din, sucking on his bottom lip. “Food. You want food?”

The child lets out another whimper, backed with tiredness.

Din’s hands move to grab the banana mash, to take a tiny bit on the edge of the spoon and hold it out to him. The baby watches him, eyes hooded but interested, and he reaches a hand out to grab the spoon. His mouth closes around it, biting on the spoon. Din gives a gentle tug back, but the baby won’t let go.

“Come on,” he grumbles. “Kid.”

The baby does let go, chewing the mash, and he swallows. Din gives him a few more bites, and they’re all received until a third of the food is gone. Then the child is rubbing at his eyes with a closed fist, staring down at the counter between his legs. Then he drops his hand and his eyes fall shut, looking exhausted. He lets out a soft babble of sounds. Din sets the bowl aside and takes a moment before he picks him up, cradled against his shoulder, and walks to the crate where it sits on the floor. He crouches down beside it, blankets still within, and gently settles him down on his back inside the crate. The child blinks up at him, but only kicks his feet a little as Din lays the blanket’s edge over him.

“What do they want with you?” he murmurs, looking down at him. It’s a question he’s never asked before about his targets. Usually, that information comes with the puck, letting him know what he’s dealing with. A murderer, an escapee, a witness to a crime. Unless this kid is somehow a loose end to something bigger, some sort of evidence through his existence, or…

Those powers.

It’s giving him a headache.

The kid drifts off to sleep, and Din gets up to check on his equipment.

He’s ready to leave, to get on the road before the kid can wake up and throw a fit, but the mechanic insists he stay for a little longer. Din’s suspicions of  _ why  _ grow bigger and bigger until the man approaches with a… car seat.

It’s homemade, and not the prettiest thing. But it has a comfortably padded seat, loops for the car belt, and sturdy straps made from seat belts. It’s a simple thing, but considerably better than a damn shipping crate. Din settles the baby into it on the ground, who still sleeps. While it’s a little big for a child of his size, it’s exactly what Din needs.

He just needs to transport the kid to the Client.

Then, it’s… out of his hands.

Again, the mechanic refuses payment for the seat, calling it a gift for the child. Din is reluctant, but then he’s belting the seat into his car, careful not to jostle the baby. Just as he clicks the belts shut, brown eyes peel open and the baby looks at him with sleepiness. He makes a tired mumble and looks around. Din grabs his brown blankets and tucks them around the child, over the belts, and steps back to close the door.

“Thank you,” he tells the mechanic, walking around to the driver’s side. “For everything. I’d like you to accept  _ some  _ form of payment for helping me.”

“No,” the mechanic says. “You were my guest and you have brought peace to my home. The tire is the only payment I will accept. Nothing else.”

Din frowns, but he nods. “Then I can only offer my thanks,” he says.

The mechanic steps back and waves. “Good luck with the child,” he says. “May it bring you a handsome reward!”

Din’s stomach lurches as the man turns back towards his garage, and he climbs into his car. He reaches for the keys in passenger seat, then stops when they aren’t there and instead hears a jingle from behind. He turns and sees the baby mouthing on the key chain, keys gripped in his hands. “Give them back,” he says, his voice firm. He reaches back and takes the keys. The baby pouts and begins to whimper. Din looks at him and sighs, then clips off the two combined key chains—a mythosaur skull and a Los Angeles metal square. He hands it back over, and the baby stares at it before grabbing. Din turns back and starts the car.

And he’s on the road again, in near dead silence, the tires rolling beneath him and windows up. The sky is a beautiful clear blue with only a few puffy clouds drifting, the fields of wheat speeding past, and no other cars in sight. As the garage disappears in the rearview mirror, becoming smaller and smaller until the road curves and it’s out of sight, a nauseous feeling has burrowed itself into his stomach and won’t let go. He grips the wheel, skin against the leather, and takes a deep breath.

Behind him, the baby coos. His attention has turned towards the window, his eyes big, but he’s otherwise calm. Din glances at him in the mirror, and the infant’s eyes are glued to the outside. He reaches a hand towards the door, fingers dragging against the material, and he’s patting it like a friend. He makes small  _ “Wuhwuhwuh”  _ sounds, mindless babble before he’s blowing spit bubbles that drip down his chin.

Din focuses on the road ahead. Eventually, they come to a stoplight, the first sign of real civilization for miles. He stops at the red light, and beside them on the corner is a farm stand, a quaint little red building that advertises locally grown food. The promise of pie and donuts is tempting, but as long as a target is in his car he’s on the job. He takes a deep breath and leans his elbow on his window, tapping against the wheel. Another car drives by. He’s the only other person here besides the few workers inside the local shop.

It’s an unfortunate amount of time at the light, letting the baby discover the field of goats nearby. The excited shrieks are instant, and he kicks his feet as he lets out coos and babbles and cries, alongside breathy giggles. Din sighs and reaches for the radio, turning it on and the volume up on the first station to play. It drowns out the baby’s sounds as the light turns green and he eases onto the gas.

The streets of Los Angeles are familiar, but they’ve never been home. As they’re surrounded by pedestrians on the side walks and busy streets full of cars, Din turns off the GPS and just focuses on the ride. At some point, the baby has become quiet, simply watching out the window. Din turns off the radio, taking a deep breath, as their destination gets closer and closer.

His heart continues to pound in his chest.

_ Beskar. _

He closes his eyes for a moment, taking a deep breath, willing the feeling away. He can’t feel bad for this. He can’t afford to. Beskar is cultural wealth, important to his people,  _ crucial  _ to his people. Where it was once abundant in jewelery, protection, every day use, their surviving children have barely seen much. What they have has been crafted into thin plates beneath their clothes, protecting themselves, hidden so it can’t be taken.

The reward for this hunt is… more than enough. It would be enough for his entire combat kit with more to spare, to give to another. To give to their found children. Found, like he had been, taken into a culture that shaped him. Even if they struggle to continue passing it on, Din can contribute with reclaimed beskar.

He pulls up outside the Imps’ safehouse and parks alongside the curb. He takes a deep breath, then shuts off the car, sitting in silence for a moment before he looks up in the mirror. The child is looking sleepy again, eyes drifting shut and head leaning against the side of the seat. He breathes softly and Din pulls the keys, getting out. He shuts the door, glancing around at the street with caution. Cars drive past, he’s careful to stay out of the way. The sun is beating down now, sweat sticking beneath his arms and at the small of his back. He walks around the car, giving more glances to the pedestrians on the sidewalk.

His mask stays up. He opens the car door and is careful to not disrupt the child, unbelting the seat from the car. His keychain is forgotten and he takes it, shoved into his pocket. The baby squirms a bit, but doesn’t seem interested in waking until Din is lifting the seat. He makes a small whimper at being disturbed, and Din holds the seat by the handle as he shuts the car door. The baby is, luckily, clothed by the blankets as he walks towards the empty storefront.

_ Closed for Renovations.  _ A tiny jewelry store that will never open. He makes sure his mask is in place before he’s reaching for his keys, shoving one into the door, and opening it. The store front is small, empty. The prize is instead the  _ employees only  _ door near the back, walking through past empty tables until he reaches it. Here, he knocks on the door and glances towards the camera in the top corner. He reaches into his back pocket and pulls the black fob, shut off for now, and holds it up.

After a few seconds, the door clicks and opens. A stormtrooper stands in the doorway, another just off his shoulder, and they look at him before down at the car seat he holds. After a few seconds, they look at each other and then clear the way.

The baby stares up at them with a frown, looking rather confused before he turns up towards Din. He makes a soft, questioning coo.

Din walks through the door.

The stormtroopers lead him through the miniscule, claustrophobic hallway towards the back, the  _ real  _ use of the building space, and into a larger room where a single desk sits. Two more stormtroopers stand around, rifles in their hands, and Din’s Client is behind the desk. In an instant, he is up and coming around the desk as Din approaches, the car seat in hand. “Yes,” he mutters, the jumpy scientist following behind. “Yes, yes, yes, yes…”

The trooper beside Din reaches down and grabs it out of his hand.  _ Hey,  _ Din starts to say, but he holds himself back before he can make a sound. The seat is held up higher and the Client and scientist both crowd in front of it, looking  _ delighted.  _ “Yes,” the Client still mutters. Din’s stomach turns as the scientist takes a bio scanner from his pocket, running the light over the child’s face. The baby squints against it.

_ He’s delirious, sweating but unable to move, not intending to cough into the medic’s face. The orange light passes over his own face and he squints against the light. “102 degrees,” the medic grumbles. “This is going through all the recruits’ barracks.” _

“Undernourished,” the scientist says with a smile, “but healthy.” Din stares at him, expression hidden by only his low-pulled cap and mask. He seems forgotten by the others until the Client finally pulls away from the child and instead looks at him.

“Your reputation was not unwarranted,” he says.

Din’s jaw is tight. “How many fobs did you give out?” he demands.

“This asset was extremely important to me. I had to ensure its delivery any way I could. But you have been successful, and to the victor go the spoils.”

He turns and walks to the desk. Din steps to follow, standing on the other side, and takes a deep breath as a camtono is produced. It’s a thick, protective case, thunking against the desk with the weight of the beskar it holds. A code is input to unlock the device and the sides drop with a hiss, revealing the bars. In an instant, Din steps up and drops his fob before he slides out two. They’re lighter than they look in his hands, and he runs a thumb over the wavy grey and silver lines. An Imperial sigil is stamped in the corner on every one.

Nothing that their forge’s fire can’t destroy.

A whimper from the child grabs his attention and he looks up. The scientist has taken hold of the child’s car seat from the trooper and is walking through another door. The seat is turned backwards and the baby faces him, staring at him with big eyes. Tears are starting to form and he lets out another whimper, threatening to turn into larger cries, and he leans forward to make grabby hands. The belt holds him in the seat and Din watches in silence, thumb pressing into the beskar.

The kid disappears.

He stops, then looks down at the ingot. He takes a deep breath, heart pounding in his throat, almost shivering from the blasted AC. The Client already appears to be moving on, taking Din’s fob. Din watches, then looks up.

“What are your plans for it?”

Tension floods back into the room. The Client stops and stares at him, his gaze piercing and weighted, and Din mouths a silent  _ fuck  _ behind the mask. “How  _ uncharacteristic _ of someone of your reputation,” the Client hisses, that frustratingly slow drawl to his voice now with an edge of danger. The stormtroopers detect it as well, stepping up now with distinct raising of their rifles. Din tightens his jaw, holding eye contact with the Client.

From the other side of the wall, shrieking cries begin, desperate sobs that send chills down his spine. The scientist’s voice is barely audible over the sounds. Din makes fists at his side.

“You have taken job and payment. By your code, these events are to be  _ forgotten.”  _ The Client’s tone adds to his nausea. “Would otherwise not impact your place in the Guild?”

Din stares at him.

Then shoves the bars back into the camtono, locks it, and jerks it off the table as he stalks out through the door and back to his car.

The neighborhood is their home, but it isn’t  _ home.  _ Din drives through the back streets of Los Angeles, watching the slow transformation of busy but pristine streets turning dirtier and dirtier, from well kept skyscrapers to smaller communities with a distinct change in demographics. The transition from beautiful LA beachside to a place that rich teenagers will be in a hurry to just drive through.

They’re still in the city, but far from the prettiest when money is tight and politicians never care.

But it’s different since the last time he came here. Din pulls up to a familiar curb and finds that it’s become colorful—a new mural painted on the brick wall of the liquor shop, beautiful spring flowers likely painted by Cassie, the teenager down the street who dreams of art school. The sidewalks are covered in chalk, in hearts and hopscotch and product logos from TV. Some people are gathered down the street and music is playing, latin music with lyrics he can’t understand as laughter rings out.

Flags hang from the buildings, broadcasting pride of their nationalities. Some children go by on bikes, others play on the other side of the street together as they talk in their languages. Trash sits on the curb, yet to be picked up, neatly set out at their assigned spots. There’s an intimate feeling here, like everyone knows everyone.

But his people don’t fit into that.

Din gets out of the car, camtono in one hand. He looks up at their building, silent and foreboding, the brick seeming to tower over with the secrets it hides. He steps up onto the sidewalk, beginning to walk down, careful to not step directly on any of the fragile art. He’s only a few steps towards the door when he’s distracted by shrieks of laughter and “DIN!”

He turns. A group of children, dressed in a mottled assortment of summer clothes and half-face masks, is continuing the stream of chalk art. But they now drop the chalk and run towards him, all smiles, and Din just gets the camtono on the ground before he’s got an armful of children.

“You’re back!”

“We missed y—“

“Did you kill any bad guys?”

“Did you bring us stuff!?”

They’re all talking over each other with excitement, some trying to ask questions while others are trying to fill him in on what he’s missed. The twins are chattering away with catchups as Calan and Hessa are both still demanding to know if he’s gotten any bad guys. Lyra, four years old and maskless, pushes through to lift her arms and demand “up!”

“Hey, hey,  _ k’uur!” _

Some children fall silent while the others blink in confusion but follow suit.

“I have to go inside and talk,” he says, his voice gentle. “About some adult things. But I’ll tell you whatever you want to know later. Okay?”

“Okay,” they all grumble, accompanied with varying degrees of pouting. But they all return to their chalk drawings, Lyra pulled by the hand, and he’s alone. He takes a breath, then grabs the camtono again and walks towards the stairs leading inside.

He steps into a different world.

The sounds of outside, of cheerful cultural camaraderie and summer, fade away and disappear with the door shutting. Here, it becomes quiet, near silent, only the hum of the AC and the lights audible. He walks further down the hallway, the cold seeping into his jacket, his hands, his footsteps cautious. He passes a Mandalorian flag on the wall, the mythosaur printed with pride, fluttering as he walks by.

He hears hammering.

_ “What’s beskar?” _

_ The hammer strikes the hot metal, sparks flying, the smiths working fast and with familiarity. Din watches from the window with wide eyes, leaning in, as wheelbarrows of battered iron is brought in to be melted down and recreated. _

_ “It’s iron from Mandalore,” Rian Wessan says, shoulder to shoulder with Din. “Not the stupid stuff you get from other places. Beskar is good. All the soldiers wear it.” _

_ Behind them, reflected in the window, soldiers speed by on their morning run. Din watches, before his attention returns to the forge. _

He doesn’t go unnoticed in the Covert. Not when he’s the only one of them to leave. He knows the camtono is noticed, knows when they follow him to the forge. He doesn’t address them, won’t, his thoughts turning from beskar to the whimpers of a child.

His heart is back in his throat as he sits down in front of their Armorer, inputs the code, and the beskar is revealed. There’s an intake of breath from behind him, from the masked men and women whose gazes burn into his back now. She looks at him, eyes locked with his own, asking the silent question. But he can’t bring himself to speak it, not in front of others. Instead, he simply looks down at the beskar, and she begins to take each of the bars out.

“This is a large amount,” she says, “and it can be used in many ways. How is your armor?”

“It holds, but it is worn,” he says. “It will give eventually. I may need new plates.”

“This will be enough to replace all that you currently wear, and then some.” The Armorer’s eyes look considerate as she looks it over. “You are successful in returning to us with resources. It is fitting for you to have such replacements.”

A hand reaches in and snatches a bar out of the camtono. The Armorer pays it no mind, but Din feels his stomach turn cold as he looks up at Paz Vizla. The massive Mandalorian towers over them, facial features hidden by a mask but his scowl evident anyway. He glares at the bar, then turns and holds it up for the others to see.

“These were forged in an Imperial smelter,” he spits with venom. “These were gathered in the Great Purge!”

Din sits in silence, eyes fixed on the beskar.

“The  _ decimation  _ of our people.” Paz’s furious gaze is directed at him again, burning through Din with its accusation. He only sits there, taking a deep breath, trying to calm himself. “The reason we stay here in  _ this  _ place, this country, hiding like sand rats. Why we  _ can’t go back.” _

“Our secrecy is our survival.” The Armorer’s voice is calm in comparison to the tension, continuing to count out the bars and place them together in a neat assortment. “Our survival is our strength.”

_ Our survival.  _ When so many barely made it out alive.

“Our strength was in our numbers!” Paz snaps. “There were millions of Mandalorians and now it may only be in the hundreds if we’re so  _ lucky.  _ Our country was shattered and turned to hell by the Empire and this bastard is going to share  _ tables  _ with those murderers!” The bar is tossed back onto the table, making a damning  _ thump.  _ “Captain,” he spits. Din’s heart is pounding, rage threatening to bubble from beneath. He focuses on the sigil.

But then Paz reaches for him and his instincts take over.

He grabs the wrist of the hand reaching for him and shoves it up past his head. A second fist slams across his face, earning a pained gasp and forcing tears into his eyes, the front of his jacket seized and pulled. He ducks under the next swing, instead driving his fist up into Paz’s jaw. The larger man hisses, releasing Din just enough for him to step back and pull his knife.

He dives in and manages a slash across his jacket, but it barely manages to cut the beskar-laden fabric, much less touch the protective armor beneath. Instead, Paz steps back with the hits until he can grab Din and drag him in, a knee slamming into his gut. The knife falls from his hand. The air is forced out of him, his insides feeling displaced, and he sucks it back in. He jerks his arm back and dips, snatching up his knife again before he’s dodging a swipe from Paz’s.

The Mandalorians watch in silence.

Both breathe hard, scowls etched and hisses drawn with every hard contact. Their forearms slam together in blocks and strike attempts, and Paz has strength and size while Din has speed. He barely dodges a knife that cuts through his jacket instead. He pulls his arm back from Paz’s grip and both stop, knives raised, pointed at each other’s throats.

Paz’s knife  _ just  _ touches his throat, not piercing but an uncomfortable presence. Din’s doesn’t reach. They pant heavily, standing in a false stalemate where Din won’t win. They stare at each other, glaring with fury, but unmoving.

“The Empire is  _ gone,”  _ the Armorer says, her voice echoing through the room. The Mandalorians all watch in silence. “The beskar has returned to us.”

Din takes deep breaths, his heart continuing to race, sweat sticking beneath his clothes. He sucks in air, gripping the knife.

“We walk the Way of the Mandalore,” she continues. “We are both hunter and prey. More so in these times when our heritage is so despised and feared. How can one be lesser when we choose this way of life?” Her gaze turns onto Din, but he holds Paz’s. “It would be easy to shed your gear and turn your back.”

“It would be,” he rasps.

“Have you ever denied your identity as a Mandalorian?”

“No. Never.”

Her gaze burns hot. “This is the Way,” she says.

“This is the Way,” the others echo.

“This is the Way,” Paz says. He steps back, slipping his knife back into his jacket.

Din takes a deep breath, his heart still going as he relaxes his stance. He lets his hand hang at his side, grip loosening on the blade’s handle. “This is the Way,” he says.

The others begin to slink away, disappearing into other parts of their home. He turns and looks towards the Armorer, then is slow to take his seat again. She doesn’t look at him, instead continuing to arrange the beskar. While the tension has lessened, he still feels it in his shoulders, a discomfort now with being here. 

“Some should be reserved for the foundlings,” he says. “They deserve to have beskar.”

She looks at him. “As it should always be,” she says. “Foundlings are the future.”

He watches as she gathers the beskar in her hands, standing and walking towards the workbench. The beskar is loaded onto a tray, lifted and placed into the flames, a distinct sizzling as it’s placed and then bubbling as it melts. Din watches the process, jaw tight, tension sitting in his shoulders.

And he waits.

_ He sits in the closet, hidden beneath the dusted coats, tears in his eyes as his hands tremble. His back is against the wall and he stares at the door, his heart racing, gripping the fabric of his pants. _

_ Downstairs, he can hear the door break open. His father is shouting, his mother screams and cries. Rough voices, and then a loud  _ ratatatat  _ and clinking metal. He holds in a scream, hugging himself as tight as he can, face buried in his knees as the tears stream down his cheeks. He knows.  _ He knows.

_ Then footsteps echo up the staircase and he can’t breathe. _

_ He pushes himself back against the closet wall, tucking into the corner, fear turning his entire body cold and tense. He’s going to be sick. He tries to pull the coats further over him, trembling but holding still. The footsteps approach, voices getting closer, speaking in a language he can’t understand. Then, someone is approaching the closet, and he holds his breath. _

_ The door flies open. For a moment, it’s silent. Then a hand seizes his leg and drags him forward, a scream escaping him, grabbing desperately at a wooden floor that his grip only slides off of. He stares up into the barrel of a rifle, his heart pounding wildly in his chest. _

_ “Please,” he sobs. _

_ Then glass shatters, something slams to the floor, and the soldier’s attention turns away. He raises his rifle, but then he’s pounded with a wave of bullets sending him back onto the floor, unmoving. Din watches with big, terrified eyes, nausea threatening to empty his stomach, until his attention shifts from the body to the newcomer. _

_ Several feet away, a man in blue stands. _

_ He lowers his gun, instead hooking it to his back, and walks over. _

_ Din scrambles back into the closet, near blinded by both tears and fear as he attempts to make himself small. But the soldier only crouches down in front of him, the popping of guns still in the background. His face is near hidden—he wears a blue helmet, a blue mask, eyes hidden by sunglasses.  _ Forte  _ is written on the front of his vest, a symbol like claw marks on his sleeve opposite a flag. _

_ “You’re okay, kid,” Forte says, and he holds his hand out. He makes a gentle beckoning motion. “I can get you out of here. I’m Mandalorian, I won’t hurt you.” _

_ Din stares at him, curled up tight. Outside, there’s whistling until an explosion and the house shakes. He squeezes his eyes shut, frozen. _

_ “Let’s go, kid.” _

_ He stares at the Mandalorian. Finally, another round of popping guns prompts him to move, and he reaches out a hand. The Mandalorian takes his wrist and pulls him out, scooped straight into his arms. Din latches on in an instant, arms and legs wrapping tight around him, fitting around the bulk of his vest. _

_ “Good boy,” the soldier says, arms supporting his weight. “Everything’s okay now.” _

Din stares at the pile of new gear. It’s almost too much for him—not in terms of amount, but value. He reaches out and takes the black vest, heavy but without bulk, the beskar slipped inside as thin plates. Beneath it, the yards worth of beskar cloth—black fabric with beskar threaded through every inch of it, enough to scramble scanners and security when wrapped around an object. The various other pieces, combined with both new and old beskar, to create more tools.

He looks at the small vambraces, thin to be worn under jackets. Grappling wire, a short but deadly amount of whistling birds, ready to launch if he needs. He’s slow as he puts them on, the clasps clicking shut. His jacket sleeve covers it up without issue. He gathers the rest into a backpack, bringing it up onto his shoulders as he stands.

He walks to the door, every step feeling heavy. His cap and mask are in place, and he needs to leave. He needs to  _ go.  _ He reaches the door and pushes on the bar, heading out, when a voice calls him back.

“Djarin.”

He stops and looks back at Paz. His muscles tense, ready to slip through the door if he has to. But Paz only leans against the wall by the elevator, watching him, eyes dark.

“You know what they did to us,” he says. “What they did to Mandalore.”

Din swallows, the summer air blowing against his arm, the cold air escaping. “I was there,” he says. “I saw the explosions. I  _ know  _ what they did.”

He remembers the abandoned cars on the highway as his helicopter flew out.

Paz is quiet for a moment, but he takes a step closer. Din pushes the door open a little more, leaning his weight against it. “Then you don’t have an excuse,” Paz growls, looming over Din. “You brought beskar back this time. But if you’re running  _ jobs _ for  _ Imps—“ _

“I’m not—“

“Then you might as well have been on the other side of those shields, and I’ll gut you.” Paz’s gaze burns into him. “As the traitor that would make you. Whatever the hell your rank was.”

Din glares up at him, fingers digging into the door. “Yes,  _ sir,”  _ he spits back, before he slips out through the door. It shuts behind him with a bang and he’s quick down the steps, walking back to his car.

“Din!” The children look over at him.

He doesn’t respond, pulling the backpack off his shoulders, unlocking the doors. He dumps it into the backseat, then walks around to the front. He climbs in, the kids watching in silence, his bad mood worsening. He grabs his keys from his pocket and shoves the car’s into the ignition. The engine starts up, he grips the wheel.

He needs another job. Something far. Far, far away. Something that has nothing to do with the Imperials. The other side of the country would be good. He’s got beskar cloth, he can manage a transcontinental flight no problem. Hell, he’ll fly to another country  _ today  _ if it means getting his mind off things.

He puts the car into drive. Checks his mirror, pulls out onto the street, down towards the stoplight. It’s red, and he waits there, taking deep breaths. Straight ahead, a few turns, into the city. He’ll be at the Guild, he’ll get a puck, he’ll be gone for as long as he can manage.

Fuck.

He needs a drink.

Then, he hears crying.

He looks over. A woman is on the sidewalk with a stroller, crouching down in front of it as she tries to calm her baby. Din watches; the toddler squirms and cries, face twisted up, red with the force of its misery. His stomach turns and he pulls his gaze away, shoving down the feelings in his chest, the memories of an infant screaming like that just hours ago.

An infant that had looked  _ terrified  _ in comparison to his calmness in Din’s arms.

Then his eyes drift to his keys, which haven’t been hitting against his leg like usual. He frowns, his hand coming to the missing keychains, before he reaches for his pocket and pulls them out. Slowly, he reconnects them, the charms bumping his knee now.

His stomach turns again, his entire body unsettled. He stares at them. Then, there’s a loud beep of a horn behind him, and he looks up to see the light has turned green. He looks at it, easing his foot off the break.

Then he hits his turn signal and slams on the gas, tires screeching as he makes a left towards the safehouse.

_ You want a Mandalorian, you get the whole Mandalorian. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mando'a:  
> Kuur - quiet!
> 
> The [discord](https://discord.gg/UwZuG6N)  
> Follow me on [tumblr](https://coffee-quill.tumblr.com/)


	3. Reconciliation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A stormtrooper is coming down the alley, rifle raised, sweeping the area.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My [discord](https://discord.gg/UwZuG6N)  
> Follow me on [tumblr](https://coffee-quill.tumblr.com/)

The sun is beginning to set. The street is a little clearer as he pulls up, finding a spot further down the sidewalk in between two other cars. For several moments, he parks and sits there, watching the front entrance. He pulls the key from his pocket and holds it between his fingers, taking a deep breath.

The streets are still populated, but lesser now. It’s a brief lull in activity, something that won’t last as the sun sets and the nightlife begins. There’s a club down the street that will be packed soon. He needs to be fast. Not just for the kid. But to avoid hurting innocents and before the cops can show up. The Guild  _ won’t  _ help him out of this one.

He knows what he’s doing. He knows that stealing the baby means giving up the Guild. Weeks ago, he would’ve backed out of this. One kid isn’t worth his entire livelihood, his tribe’s dependency on him. But he remembers terrified brown eyes and his blood is already boiling. A warm breeze comes past as he gets out of the car, instead walking around to the back. He gets the backpack out of the back, then opens the trunk and begins to prepare.

He’ll blow whatever he’s got if it means he gets out with the kid.

He takes off his jacket, slipping on the beskar vest over his shirt before replacing the coat. It’s hot and bulky, but he can’t sacrifice protection for comfort. He slips his gloves on, his vambraces in place, whistling birds and hook loaded. Two pistols loaded on either side of him. His rifle slings over his shoulder. Already, he’s getting stares, looking ready for war. He pays no attention to it. Bounty hunting is a good excuse until the cops show up.

In and out with the kid. That’s all he’s got to do.

And leave behind a few more dead troopers.

He takes a deep breath, a drink of water, calming himself down. He fits more charges onto his belt, flashbangs and explosives to cause as much damage as possible. He doesn’t have as much gear as he’d like for this. No full combat kit for protection, no backup, not enough reassurance that he’ll survive this. This is solo. On his own.

He slams the door shut.

Since when the hell has he ever had better odds?

It’s a simple plan of spreading out their forces. He doesn’t know much about the building—he hasn’t gotten to see beyond the storefront and the meeting room. It’ll be a guessing game. He has no idea where the kid is, if the kid is even still there, no way to  _ know.  _ But there  _ is  _ a side wall down an alleyway. He walks down it, looking around when he finds a dumpster. Beside it is a ladder to the roof. He looks up the ladder, then spares a glance into the dumpster.

He swallows. The mechanic’s car seat is thrown into it, simply resting there.

His anger surges and he climbs up to the roof.

It’s flat, with nothing around but some ventilator boxes fixed to the surface. But it spreads what he assumes is the entire building, and he gives it a long look before he climbs back down again. The plan of a one-man siege begins to work in his mind. He has no droid to distract. He’ll simply have to make as many of his own distractions as he can.

With his gear ready, he pulls out a silenced pistol and a lighter.

People on the street give him a wide berth, and he jams a key into the store’s door before he’s pulling it open. He puts his back to it, holding it open but still outside. He raises the pistol, aiming towards the camera in the door, hand steady. After a few seconds, he pulls the trigger, and the camera blows into smoke and sparks. In an instant, he walks to the center of the room and holds up the lighter, flicking it on beneath the smoke detector. After a few seconds, it begins to ring, a loud, piercing noise. He can hear it echoing, blaring in the rest of the building, an automated female voice saying  _ “Fire. Fire. Evacuate now.” _

There is no stealth here.

The next instant, he’s out the door, locking it behind him before both key and lighter are shoved into a pocket. He walks around the building, finding the flat wall before he places a timed charge on it. As it begins to blink the time down, he hears the loud  _ thumping  _ from the front door as two troopers try to open it. “Search the perimeter!” one snaps, and Din is already getting up the ladder before they can turn the corner. He walks further along the roof before he places another charge on the ground. With a shorter timer, he jogs to a ventilation box and takes cover behind it.

He leans forward over the building’s edge. A stormtrooper is coming down the alley, rifle raised, sweeping the area. He stops and looks up towards the charge as it begins to buzz in warning, seconds before it blows. At the same time, a hole is blown in the roof. The building shakes and there are screams from the street; he watches from the top as the crowds all duck and begin to run.

Good, he thinks, taking his rifle off his back.

The patrol lies dead on the ground, still and unmoving, chemical fire burning along the ground and around the hole. There’s modulated shouting from inside the building and three stormtroopers appear through the hole, looking around. One drops to a knee beside the dead trooper, checking for a pulse. Din takes aim, leaning over the edge just enough.

Then, he’s spotted.

“The Mandalor—”

He squeezes the trigger and the trooper disappears into a fiery display of ash, completely destroyed. Din is quick to reload another round as bullets spray up towards him. He takes deep breaths, pressing his shoulder against the roof’s edge, waiting for the spray to stop. It does, and he looks around before seeing a bit of rubble from the roof’s explosion. He grabs it and tosses the slate over, earning another blast of gunfire. It stops, one gun clicking empty.

“I told you to  _ reloa—“ _

Din turns over and aims, firing another round at the trooper by the body, making him disappear. The other stares up at him, in the middle of reloading, and Din pulls his pistol to plant a bullet between his eyes. The trooper slumps to the ground, brain matter splattered against the ground, and Din breathes in before he’s moving again. He reloads the rifle, swings it back around on his back, and then walks to the roof’s hole. He jumps down, landing in a careful crouch on top of the rubble, looking around.

The room is empty. But footsteps are approaching, commands being yelled, and a door bursts open.

He darts behind a shelving unit, crouching down, then grabs a flashbang off his belt. He pulls the pin, then turns and throws it towards the door. It explodes into smoke and leaves behind a brutal ringing in his ears, making him wince and grit his teeth but he stands. The troopers, five of them, are bent over and hands pressed to their helmets. Everything sounds like it’s in a tunnel. Din fires one shot, then another, taking down two. One more. They barely see him before he’s firing, blood spraying against the walls, and the other rushes him.

Din dodges just in time, then pulls his knife from his boot. The trooper is slow to get up, disoriented by the sounds. He jams it into the soldier’s calf, earning a pained scream, and Din jams a knee into his chest before his arms go around the trooper’s shoulder and a hand on his helmet. He turns his arms in an instant, the trooper’s yell cut off as his neck snaps. He falls limp and Din is off him, pulling his knife back out, wiping it on his jeans.

There is no remorse. No hesitation. His gaze is steeled and he switches a blade for a gun. Only his mission, his objective, completely on autopilot.

He walks through the doorway.

He shoots another trooper through the chest. A second tries to grab him from the side, getting in a strike with the butt of his rifle that sends Din stumbling. But in an instant, he’s recovered, instead turning and slamming his heel into his gut. The trooper groans and bends over. Din grabs him and slams his knee into his helmet before raising his pistol, shooting him through the back of his head, blood spraying.

“He’s in here!”

He shoves the body away and darts for the next door.

He has no idea where the kid is. He works his way through the building, through each room, trying to stay unseen where he can. He checks every door. Nothing.  _ Check your corners.  _ He shoots more troopers, driving bullets through or slipping his blade in between their armor. He’s leaving a trail of bodies, but he  _ doesn’t have the kid.  _ His patience is wearing thin, adrenaline pumping, a permanent scowl on his face. He can’t be here for long. He has to  _ go. _

Finally, he shoots a door open and kicks it in. A bullet whizzes past his head, another finding its mark in his middle but only burrowing into the beskar vest. He returns fire, a resounding  _ bang  _ in the room before the trooper falls, and looks around.

It’s set up like a miniature operating room, with a bed in the center that the kid lies upon. He’s unconscious or asleep, wearing a real diaper now and a thin white blanket over his legs. The scientist stands beside the bed but now turns to Din, falling back against it almost protectively, a terrified expression on his face.

“No!” he cries. His name is Pershing, maybe, not that Din cares. “No, please, it’s just a child. It’s just a child, please, no,  _ no--” _

Din grabs him by the arm and shoves him out of the way. He stares down at the baby, almost  _ peacefully  _ asleep. A screen nearby shows vitals—heart rate, blood pressure. He feels his stomach turn as he spots the bandage around the kid’s arm, a pinpoint of red in the center.

He turns and puts his gun on the scientist, who cowers against the wall. “What did you do to him?” he demands, his voice a growl. “What did you  _ do?” _

“I protected him! I protected him, if not—if not for me he’d already be dead! Please!”

Din stares at him. Then, down the hallway, he can hear more running footsteps. He doesn’t have  _ time.  _ As the doctor cowers, arms raised in self-protection, Din pulls off the patch monitors and grabs the kid up off the bed. He tries to be as gentle as he can, darting out of the room, wrapping the infant up in the blanket. He isn’t responsive. He doesn’t move in Din’s arms. His heart beats within his chest, but he isn’t  _ moving  _ and it only enrages him further.

If he had the time, he would burn this place to the ground.

He isn’t done with the troopers. As he enters another room, two more are coming in. He stops, then turns and slams his elbow into the light switch, plunging the room into darkness. “He’s here!” one snaps. “Lights—flush ‘im out!”

He ducks down against a storage box, taking deep breaths. The guns’ flashlights flicker on, their beams sweeping around the room like searchlights, and his heart is pumping. He cradles the kid against his chest, grip tight on his pistol before he calmly holsters it. Instead, he flicks his wrist, watching the furthest trooper’s light. He reaches out and aims. Then, he fires it off.

His grappling wire shoots out of the vambrace, burying itself into the trooper’s thigh. He lets out a scream as it pierces through, then Din pulls hard. The trooper stumbles, rifle falling and light clattering. He falls right into the second soldier, sending them both to the ground with groans, lights useless on the floor. Din is up on his feet, pulling a charge off his belt, and he arms it in his hand. He drops it onto the troopers as he leaps over them, sprinting for the door, and the troopers can barely yell before the charge goes off. He darts through another door, feeling the air at his back.

In his hold, the child begins to shift.

He walks through a short hallway. The door in front of him opens and he draws his pistol in a snap, shooting before a door behind him is opening now. He turns and ducks behind a stack of boxes, scowling, before he kicks the boxes out. The trooper steps, then stumbles over the boxes. Din turns and snatches the fire extinguisher off the wall, grabbing the hose with the same hand holding the baby. As the trooper looks up, he’s sprayed with a cloud of white, blinding him. Then, Din drops it with a clatter and pulls his gun instead, shooting him dead.

He steps over the body, continuing on.

He walks straight into the meeting room and now feels relief. It’s empty. He heads for the door, ready to jump in his car and flee, when the door opens and he’s instead met with troopers. He stops, sucking in a breath, as four enter the room with blasters trained on him. He licks his lips, eyes darting around as they surround him. Four. Just four.

“Mandalorian! Lower your weapon!”

He slowly raises his gun in the air.

“Drop it! Now! Or we will shoot!”

“Watch it!” he snaps. Then he eases his tone down. His heart pounds. “... What I’m holding is  _ very valuable.”  _ He begins to kneel down on the floor, one knee down, taking deep breaths. The kid is still unmoving in his arms, wrapped up in his sheet before Din places his gun down. He eases the kid down beside it, almost beneath him, bent over protectively.

“Now get up and face me!”

He watches the child’s face. There are dried tears on his cheeks, calmness now where there wasn’t before. The image of his cries is burned into his mind now. He flicks his other wrist, taking another breath in.

“Now!”

The whistling birds fire.

They zoom about the room in spins and dips, so small and fast that they can’t be visually followed. They explode as they come into contact with the heat of the troopers’ bodies, tiny detonations that will wreak havoc on the inside. The troopers all collapse with screams and groans, the smell of sulfur in the air, and Din looks around.

_ Clear. _

He grabs his pistol, holstering it, and then is careful in picking up the kid. He cradles him against his chest, making sure the sheet still covers him, and he walks through the door. Through the empty storefront, where the alarm still shrieks. He tries to cover the kid’s ears until they’re out on the empty street, walking down to his car. He tosses his rifle in the back, keeping the rest on him, as he climbs into the driver’s side. He starts up the car. Turns on his blinker, begins to pull out, joining the traffic.

The baby makes a soft coo. He squirms a bit, eyes still closed, and seems to cuddle closer against Din. His head tucks beneath Din’s chin, and Din clutches him close, leaving a bloody handprint on the sheet.

They’re almost there when the pickup starts to follow him.

Din lets out a breath. They’re nearly out of the city—one more turn and they’re free, heading straight on and onto the interstate. Free to cross state lines, get as far away as possible, he’s driven cross country before and he’ll do it now. Withdraw cash, cheap shitty motels, sleeping in the car. The first two years in this country were spent without leaving a trace. He knows how to disappear.

But that’s assuming the Guild hasn’t been tipped.

And looking at the license plate of the truck as it drives a little too close to his bumper, that plan is out the fucking window.

The baby is still quiet in his arms, sleepy and not able to be drawn out of it. He’s sluggish, drugged, or at least Din thinks he is. The bandage on his arm draws anger out of Din every time he sees it, and now his paranoia is through the roof. He digs his fingers into the wheel, taking deep breaths. He comes to a red light and stops, staring into the rearview.

Opposite the intersection, a silver sedan pulls up. Din’s blood runs cold. He can’t see its driver, but he can imagine it now. He adjusts the baby, lowering him down to rest against his stomach rather than his shoulder, a hand covering him. He looks around, then watches another car stop on the left. It turns itself sideways, blocking the road, another pulling in behind it. On his left, in the adjacent lane, another truck pulls up. He looks over. The driver wears a cap and sunglasses, not looking at Din but damn if he doesn’t recognize a hunter when he sees one.

He reaches down and slips out his pistol, resting it in the cupholder. The light won’t  _ turn.  _ He tightens his jaw and looks down at the kid as a hand twitches, waiting for any signs of waking.

Ringing startles him out of nowhere.

He jumps, then looks down and pulls his phone from his pocket. He stares down at the name  _ Greef Karga  _ printed across the screen, and his thumb hovers over the  _ ignore  _ button. It rings for several seconds. Indecision grips him until the truck from behind rolls forward, bumping into him, jerking the car. He lets out a hiss, then answers the call and brings the phone up. “Mando.”

_ “What do you think you’re doing?” _

Din tightens his jaw and looks out the window. “I’m leaving,” he says. “Taking a break.” He looks down at the kid. “You’ve been telling me to do that.”

_ “Don’t play fucking games, Mando.” _ Karga’s voice is alarmed but not completely enraged. That’s good. That’s something he can work with.  _ “You broke the code. You stole an asset from a client. Give it back to us,  _ now,  _ and we can forget this mess happened.” _

Din stares at the car across from them. The light won’t  _ turn,  _ but other cars are starting to pull up. He takes a deep breath. “Get them out of the way,” he says, his voice deadly calm. “I’m leaving.”

_ “Give us the kid. That’s an  _ order,  _ Mando.” _

“Your  _ orders  _ don’t mean shit,” Din hisses. “Don’t act as if you own me.”

_ “As far as our clients are concerned, I do. Your actions right now are hurting the Guild. Give us the child.” _

“The kid is coming with me.”

_ “If you care about the kid, you’ll give him over now. We can talk this out and discuss the terms in front of us.” _

Hunters are beginning to get out of the cars, stepping into the street. The heatwaves are obvious above the pavement and Din watches them, eyes darting all over. Guns are held, ready to fire. They have him nearly boxed in completely, and he can hear horns from the other cars they’re blocking out. Any pedestrians have taken the hint and have turned tail to run.

He watches Karga get out of the SUV, phone held, and he feels the kid stir against him.

“How do I know I can trust you?” he demands.

_ “Because I’m your only hope.” _

Din digs his teeth into his cheek. He isn’t seeing a way out. He inches the car forward, if only to get the truck behind off him, and looks around again before he weighs the options.

Not many.

“Okay,” he says.

He ends the call and shoves the phone back into his pocket. For a moment, he looks down at the kid, wrapped snug in a blanket. He watches his face, eyes running over his features, taking it all in before gathering the child against his chest. With the engine running, he unbuckles his seatbelt and gets out. He’s slow to close the door, beginning to walk into the intersection. Karga and an associate walk towards him, each with guns at their sides.

He cradles the child, who doesn’t move, just leaning his head into Din. Every gun in the area is trained on them, hunters standing outside of their cars as they take aim. Din stops a few feet away, digging his fingers into the child’s back. For a moment, they only look at each other, until finally, Karga speaks. “Give me the child.”

“You’re going to do this?” Din says. “You’re going to give a baby to the  _ Empire?” _

“I’m going to give a target to the client who paid for it.” Karga looks at him with a stern expression, then holds out an arm. Din is all too aware of the pistol in his other hand. “You should have left this alone, Mando,” he says. “Now, this is a mess we  _ all  _ have to clean up. Give it over.”

Din looks up, then at down at the kid again. His eyes are still closed, but moving beneath his eyelids. He’s soft in Din’s arms, and Din adjusts him into a one-armed cradle. He thinks of the brown eyes that look at him with such trust, such calmness until he’d been given over to the Imps. When Din had betrayed him.

He takes a deep breath.

And pulls his pistol, firing a round into the first hunter’s gut.

The hunter collapses with a cry and Din kicks his heel out, shoving Karga’s gun to the side as it fires. The man hisses in pain and Din turns tail to sprint back to the car. Bullets spray the pavement, just barely missing, one managing to skim his leg before he’s gone. The intersection is filled with blasting gunfire, the bullets firing as he dives between the cars. The kid held tight against his chest, he yanks open his door as a shield. He lifts his pistol and shoots the hunter in the truck beside him, then stands and shoots one across the intersection.

He hits every mark. Slowly, he climbs into the driver’s seat, arm reaching over his door to take down the hunters. Bullets rain from above, and he aims higher to shoot them off buildings. The metal slams into his door and window, leaving cracks but not penetrating. His car is pelted, but the beskar plating beneath holds out, and he fires a few more rounds. At his chest, the child is whimpering, face scrunched up.

His gun clicks empty. “Fuck,” he mutters.

He slams the door shut and doesn’t bother with a seatbelt, readjusting the child again as he grabs the wheel. He slams his foot on the break and his engine roars, wheels spinning before they’re launched forward. He careens around the right corner, spotting the gap between a car and sidewalk, shooting for it. Now would be a perfect time if he had something like a motorcycle, even without the beskar shields.

Instead, he fits through the gap, sides scraping. The hunters yell commands to each other, high and low pitched voices screaming over the sound of roaring engines and squealing tires, a crash behind him as two hunters ram into each other. He looks in his mirror, then sucks in a breath, looking around wildly. The streets have cleared in the area, but he needs to go. There’s no blending in when his car has been shot to hell. With sweat sticking beneath his shirt, dripping down past his eyes, he speeds down the street and slows to swing through another turn.

He needs them off his tail, and then he’s gunning it east, left lane driving for as long as he can.

His phone rings again. The same ringtone, just Karga again he’s sure, he doesn’t bother to check. His hand grips the wheel with all the strength he can manage, teeth gritted as he feels the bullet that scraped him. The child is beginning to fuss, waking now, but Din can’t spare him a glance. In the mirror, cars and trucks speed around the corner in pursuit, bullets spraying towards him with the sound of a machine gun. His jaw tightens and he stares ahead.

_ They speed through the streets of Keldabe. “Let’s go!” Wesson snaps in his ear. He leans out the window to shoot back, their target handcuffed beside him. Din takes a deep breath, jerking another turn. _

But he’s not there. He’s  _ here.  _ With another target, speeding for a different cause.

A small wail begins, tiny hands clawing at his shirt from the bundle. Din adjusts his arm to keep him still, even as the baby fights him, speeding another turn. He’s trying to stay where things are familiar, streets he recognizes, where he knows the area. The neighborhood blocks are a few miles away, and he won’t bring a gunfight to their area, but he can skirt around it. The child’s cries grow louder, continuing to squirm, and Din grits his teeth. Another wave of bullets pelts the back of the car. He’s jerking the wheel to get around cars, horns blaring at him, people screaming.

It’s too much. Too much noise. He can’t concentrate.

The slums are close, just a few streets away, noticeable by both buildings and the flags that decorate the area. He’s driving straight until a pack of cars turns the corner, speeding towards him. “Shit,” he hisses, snapping the wheel again to turn. He can feel the car tilt, wheels squealing, and for a moment whispers a prayer to whatever god exists that they won’t topple over. The car holds, all four wheels on the ground as they turn, and he’s speeding down the street again. Past the buildings. Past another block.

Past their makeshift home, the children have gone inside, their art still there on the sidewalks.

He drives past it. Makes another turn, then another and another, but the cars still follow. He manages another turn, and then fewer are coming after him. For a moment, it feels like a small victory, until he realizes that the others could be cutting around. It fills him with a sense of cold dread, and the baby continues to wail, trying to escape the bundle. “Stop,” he whispers aloud, and the child seems to stop at his voice. “Please. Stop.”

The baby continues to squirm, but with significantly less effort.

Din lets out a breath of relief, only to look up and slam on his brakes.

A grouping of cars is parked at the other end of the street, blocking it off. His tires shriek as they lock, still sliding forward on the pavement until they come to a stop. His back is pressed flush against his seat and he looks around with wide eyes, taking it all in. He throws the car into reverse, but the next half of his pursuers are already there.

He’s blocked in.

He can’t hear anything over the beating in his ears.

“Mando!”

Din watches Karga walk towards him from a car. Slowly, he pushes the car into park, then reaches up and presses the lock button on the door, reassured when they all click as one. He gathers up the distraught boy into his arms, clutching him to his chest, against the scratchy material of his vest. The baby makes a whimper, leaning his head on Din’s shoulder. His mouth is dry and his blood is cold. He stares out the windshield as Karga walks towards him, two more hunters at his heels.

“Get out of the car.”

One of the two hunters raises their gun, aiming through the shielding at Din. The other takes something off his belt and Din’s breath hitches at the sight of the explosive charge. His fingers dig into the kid and he digs his teeth into his lip.

“Mando.” Karga’s voice is commanding. “Now.”

But Din doesn’t move, can’t move, the reality of his impending defeat staring him in the eyes. The baby has calmed, content with his position at Din’s shoulder. Surrender was never something he was taught. He was always prepared to die before surrender. But instead the baby in his arms makes a coo and Din strokes his back, mind… blanking.

Karga turns and gestures to the hunter. He walks forward, reaching out to place the charge. And Din pulls the door handle, kicks it open, and climbs out.

“I’m here,” he snaps. He shoves the door shut behind him. “Don’t.”

The hunter stops, but he scowls at Din, slow in returning to Karga’s side. Din glares at him, then feels Karga’s gaze, a hand drifting down to his side holster. He still has the gun on his side, beneath his jacket.

“Put your gun down,” Karga says, voice cutting through the air with authority. “Now.”

Din stares at him. He pulls the pistol, lets the clip fall out with a  _ clink _ on the ground, then drops the gun with a louder clatter. His hand returns to the baby. Karga watches him with narrowed eyes, “Three steps forward.”

He does so.

“Put the kid down. On the ground.”

Din hesitates. He crouches down. The pavement is warm, cooled from the day. He begins to lower the kid but little hands grip his jacket, a pained whimper escaping as they’re separated. It takes seconds before the kid can let go, pre-tantrum whines making their way out, but Din settles him on the ground.

“Back up.”

His heart is pounding. He stands, then takes three steps back again. Karga is watching him, the other hunters with him, before one steps forward and snatches up the kid with little care. Din glares at him, silent, fists at his side. “Watch it,” he hisses as the kid begins to cry.

The hunter just smirks at him.

“On your knees,” Karga says, and Din turns his glare on him. “Hands behind your head.” He’s slow to obey, but gets down on his knees, hands coming up behind his head. The second hunter approaches, pulling handcuffs from his belt, and Din scowls. The baby continues to scream, kicking against the bloody blanket.

“If you want to sell your soul to the  _ Empire,”  _ Din says, “That’s on you.”

“The Empire is  _ gone,  _ Mando,” Karga says. The hunter grabs Din’s wrist, pulling it down behind his back as the handcuffs open. Din stares down at the pavement, hot anger draining into furious resignation, dread and anxiety filling his stomach. He fucked up.

They’ve got him. He’s surrounded, done, and completely alone. He spares a glance towards the kid, still making a racket, as though refusing to go quietly.  _ I’m sorry,  _ Din thinks. He squeezes his eyes shut as the metal touches his skin.  _ I’m sorry I did this to you. _

In the distance, there’s an engine roar, and for a moment everything but the baby pauses. It approaches, growing louder, until there’s a loud  _ bang. _

There’s a spray of red liquid against him, brain matter splattering past him onto the street before a weight hits his back and shoves him down onto the pavement. Din groans, turning to shove the dead hunter off, and all hell breaks loose.

Mandalorians surround the street.

He kicks the body off and gets up to his knees, looking around. Hunters are screaming as Mandalorians on the roofs pick them off, many aiming up at them wildly before taking a bullet, shouting out commands and warnings. Many more appear on roaring motorcycles, slipping through the gaps in the cars before they roll to a stop, rifles blazing.

Karga has already disappeared, likely cowering elsewhere, but the hunter with the kid is still in front of him. He turns to flee but Din is a quick draw with the gun at his side before he’s shooting into the hunter’s knee. The man tumbles forward, clutching at the kid, who screams louder with the noise. Din sprints over, firing another shot into the hunter’s head to splatter more blood before he’s reaching for the kid.

Bullets fly, the Mandalorians yell orders in Basic, and Din gathers up the baby in the blanket. He bends over in the street, holding on tight, shielding with his body as he looks for an escape.

Then a motorcycle circles around to a stop beside him, and he looks up at Paz Vizla, who’s already lifting his machine gun to shoot the hunters in rapid-fire. Din stares at him, wrapping half his jacket around the kid. Once the rounds stop, he calls out.

“Get out of here,” Paz says. “We’ll cover you.”

“You’ll have to move,” Din yells. “They’ll know Mandalorians are here!”

Paz looks down at him. “This is the Way.”

“... This is the Way,” he says.

The baby continues to scream against him, grabbing onto Din with all the strength he has. Some of the hunters have already turned tail and fled, rubber burning in their escape, leaving a hole. He runs for his own car, jumping in, and he doesn’t wait. As soon as the door is shut, he’s hightailing it through the hole, making it out onto the next road. The gunfire is still loud and commanding, but it begins to fade behind him as he drives. He takes a deep breath, out on the road, his shoulders finally able to relax. 

The baby begins to calm, too. With the noise gone, he’s instead looking up at Din with tear-filled, big brown eyes, cheeks drenched with tear tracks. He reaches a hand up to touch Din’s jaw, tiny fingers dragging against his mask. Din glances down at him, then draws him up closer, letting the child’s head tuck beneath his chin. “It’s okay,” he murmurs. The baby cuddles in, sniffling but quiet. “It’s oka—“

The car is slammed to the side, throwing them both, and Din hisses as he grabs the child tight against his chest. The baby lets out a startled shriek and Din clutches him close as the car spins from the impact. After a few seconds, it settles and Din hits the brake, looking up as he reaches for his gun. He stares up at the car that’s hit him, eyes big. “Motherfu—“

Karga climbs out of the other car, gun held, aiming at Din with a scowl on his face as his car smokes. Din takes a deep breath, watching, sucking in air. He eases the door open with his foot, still protected behind the car’s frame. The street lights are on, the sun still providing some light.

“Hold it there, Mando.”

Din eases the child into the passenger seat, lifting his gun.

“Hold it!”

He stops. The child continues to wail, a persistent sound that seems locked into his mind.

“Get out. Let’s talk.”

Din flicks the safety. He steps out of the car, keeping the door between himself and Karga, then is slow to step beyond it.

“It didn’t have to happen like this, Mando.” Karga lets out a tense breath. “Give me the child, quit it with the tricks, and we can work our way through this. See how we can salvage the situation. I’m trying to offer you a way out of this, but if you—”

Din lifts his gun. He takes a deep breath, sights aimed, bullet set for Karga’s chest. Karga stops cold, watching him, both standing now in a silent stalemate with both guns aimed and both with accurate aim. Din’s eyes dart around, then he tilts the barrel. He squeezes the trigger.

The gunshot booms and a tire pops, Karga’s car sinking down onto the pavement. The man jumps, firing off shots, and inside the car the kid begins to cry again, loud shrieks that sound muffled. Din ducks down behind the door, staring at the step leading into the car, fingers digging into the door beside the window. Karga’s rounds pop off, echoing off the buildings. In the distance, he can still hear the firefight behind them. He takes a deep breath and then wrenches himself up again, aiming through the dip between the car and open door, squeezing the trigger.

He only shoots once. Karga lets out a cry and falls to the ground, clutching at his chest, and Din doesn’t hesitate or look any further. He grabs the cargo rack above and vaults himself into the driver’s seat, slamming the door shut behind him. He spares only a second to pick up the crying kid, settling him into his lap, then hits the gas.

The engine roars, the tires squeal, and rubber burns. They’re shooting off down the street, leaving Karga behind, the Guild behind, and even… the Mandalorians. He doesn’t allow himself to feel that hurt, far more concerned about getting out of the city and away from the eyes of cameras. He speeds through a red light, then another—they’re all empty save for a few cars whose drivers haven’t been scared away by the gunshots. He ignores their honks, barely hearing them, instead only hearing the sobs of the baby that are muffled by his sternum.

“Shh,” he tries. In the distance, sirens wail. “Shh. It’s okay.”

The city begins to melt away behind them. It’s dark now, the way lit only by the barest remaining streaks of sunset and the streetlights. They file into traffic, rush hour over now as they drive.

The adrenaline is beginning to fade, and the red is spreading through his shirt, down the side of his chest and his arm. His hand hangs on the bottom of the wheel, only holding them straight as the other cradles the calming child. Din lets out a breath, then grits his teeth. “Fuck,” he whispers.

Then, a horn beep, and he looks over.

A motorcycle rides alongside them, the Mandalorian on it unrecognizable at first until they pass another streetlight. Paz looks at him and Din looks back, both with hidden expressions beneath their masks, until Paz gives him a salute.

Both arms occupied, Din gives him a nod.

Paz drops the salute, then falls behind, and Din watches from the mirror as he speeds off the exit ramp.

The baby has fallen quiet now, then begins to push away from Din, instead planting a hand on the bottom of the wheel to pull himself. Din watches him. He starts reaching a hand and Din realizes he’s trying to grasp the keychain. He makes a soft  _ “uh, uh, uh”  _ as he reaches, and Din gently pulls him back. The baby whimpers, but stops as Din unlatches the chain and hands it to him.

The kid lets out a coo and grabs it, shoving the links of a chain into his mouth. Din watches him a moment, then pulls him back against his stomach again, gently secured by his arm. The kid is content with this as he mouths at the chain and Din turns the wheel, guiding them to their exit. “Good boy,” he murmurs, teeth gritted as he ignores the agonizing ache in his shoulder. “Good.”

There’s no going back now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mando'a  
> (None)
> 
> My [discord](https://discord.gg/UwZuG6N)  
> Follow me on [tumblr](https://coffee-quill.tumblr.com/)


	4. Bound Together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On that front, he gently tucks the kid’s head beneath his chin, facing him away from the cameras before grabbing a cart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As a mention: near the bottom, there's a discussion about darker things in bounty hunting involving kids who have witnessed crime. It's brief, but could be unsettling. Enjoy y'all.
> 
> The [discord](https://discord.gg/UwZuG6N)  
> Follow me on [tumblr](https://coffee-quill.tumblr.com/)

“Hey—hey. No. That’s a cord, you can’t—”

The baby lets out a displeased shriek as Din pulls the charging cord away from his mouth. He reaches up for it, but Din unplugs the block and tosses it all onto the bed before he walks back to the motel bathroom. The baby makes another shriek, as though asking for it back, but he seems to lose interest quickly.

Din pays it no mind, not even sure if the kid has object permanence, and instead is staring at himself in the mirror. He’s a fucking mess. His shirt was drenched in blood, now just tossed—it’s ripped and stained, too much to wash out in this situation. He’s treated his wound as best as he can, now wrapped in bandages from his emergency med stash. Painkillers have eased away most of the pain, and it isn’t a new sensation. He grabs the razor and continues to shave, slicing away the growing scruff that’s begun to shadow his jaw.

The motel is run down, beaten by time, and none of the staff cared when he pulled up with no call ahead and asked for a room. If his blood-soaked shirt was noticed, hidden behind the body of a barely-dressed infant, it wasn’t mentioned. And the room is better than nothing, even if the buzzing light is irritating and he’s already found two cockroaches in the closet.

Just as long as the kid doesn’t go near them.

He finishes up and wipes his face clean, letting out a sigh. Last night’s sleep was shit, as the kid seemed to intend. He’s exhausted and tired, but at least showered and clean. He gave the kid a bath as well, and after the diaper was soiled, he crawls around naked now. Din steps out of the bathroom and watches him with a sigh; he’s just looking for something to teethe on, but a motel room doesn’t offer much.

He walks over and scoops up the kid, who lets out a coo and reaches up for him. “You need clothes,” he says. He settles him down on the bed. “And… a lot of things.”

“Aaah,” the kid coos, sticking fingers in his mouth.

“Food,” Din says.

“Aaaah!”

“You don’t know what I’m saying.”

The baby stares at him.

“Right.” Din lets out a sigh, then walks to his backpack on the end of the bed and starts to dig through it. He pulls out a wrinkled but clean shirt and slips it on, then digs through some more. He’s got… well, the kid  _ could  _ wear one of his shirts to the store. He’s got a fitted compression shirt that he wears for jobs, and it offers the best fit for the kid. Din pulls it out and walks to the kid, who stares up at him and only squeezes his eyes shut when Din slips it over his head.

It hangs on the kid like a dress. Getting his arms through the sleeves is a pointless endeavor. Din eyes him, then steps back to his medkit and looks through it. From it, he grabs a safety pin and returns to the kid. “Hold still,” he mutters, not that the kid is particularly fussy anyway. He gathers up the fabric at the back of his neck and is careful to pin it without sticking him, just enough that it won’t fall down his shoulders.

He steps back again and the kid just stares up at him.

“Alright,” Din mutters. It’ll have to do. “Let’s get you some real clothes, okay?”

The kid is not at all opposed to the plan, watching as Din gathers up his equipment and packs it all away again. He blocks the door open and walks out to his car, putting it all away in his trunk, making sure it fits as it should before he slams it shut. He starts back towards the room, then stops and looks at his door.

It’s completely littered with bullet holes.

He looks at it for a moment, then sighs and walks back to the trunk, opening it to grab out black gorilla tape. It only takes him a few minutes to cover it all up with the tape, and it looks… like absolute shit. But much better for it to look like a terrible repair job than the clear aftermath of a gunfight. He tosses the tape in the back seat and returns to the room, where the kid hasn’t moved, only laid on his back and grabbed his toes with a wad of the fabric shoved in his mouth. He coos as Din walks over and is scooped up, laid against Din’s shoulder.

“Need you to stay quiet, kid,” he mutters, walking around to the driver’s seat. He settles in and the kid just coos, snuggled up against his chest. “Nice and quiet.”

The drive to the nearest store takes them to a Target. He checks that he’s got his card, both to pay now and withdraw cash before getting as far away from here as possible. He slips his jacket on, mindful of his wound, before he gathers up the kid once more and gets out. There are people coming in and out of the store and for this, he slips off the mask, takes off the cap, just runs a hand through his hair before going. It feels incredibly exposing. He lets out a breath of discomfort as he walks. But he’s recognized for the cap and mask by the Guild and even when they inevitably see him on these cameras, better that they be as uncertain as possible if it’s  _ really  _ him.

On that front, he gently tucks the kid’s head beneath his chin, facing him away from the cameras before grabbing a cart.

No one pays them any mind—aside from a few smiles, certainly directed at the baby. A few women pass by, both looking at the kid with delighted expressions, a few other people just glancing at them. But it’s no different than the normal effects of being in public, surrounded by people who are far more concerned about how  _ they’re  _ perceived in the space than him. Luckily, the kid pays little mind to any of it, looking sleepy as he’s tucked in against Din.

He goes straight for the kids’ section, finding the racks of children’s’ clothes in all sorts of colors and sizes. The smallest ones are arranged by age, although it doesn’t seem particularly helpful, especially when he doesn’t actually know this child’s age. But he looks at a few onesies and other outfits that peg him as pajamas. Not that he has a preference. The kid just needs some damn clothes.

A dinosaur shirt. One with cupcakes on the front. An onesie with frogs stamped all over. A few pairs of shorts. He tosses them all in, barely concerned for prices. They’re all a little big on the kid, but he’d rather go for too big than too small. He doesn’t know how long the baby will be in his custody, but preparation for the long haul won’t hurt them. With a few outfits grabbed, he moves on.

The baby section offers plenty of aid. A pack of diapers, cream, infant formula, several packages of wipes, and two teething rings are tossed in. Thrown in as well as a small black messenger bag, purely to hold it all in one spot. He takes whatever seems useful, scanning the shelves as the kid slumbers against his chest.

At the end of an aisle, he finds both a new car seat… and a  _ birikad.  _ He looks at the baby harness for a minute, contemplating, but thinks of the possibility of a gunfight where he has no choice but to hold the kid. He needs two hands. But he glances at what’s already in his cart and he frowns. The car seat slides beneath. The carrier goes untouched.

In another section, he finds a warm blanket, tosses that in. He moves on to food, grabbing some essentials for himself—microwavable meals, snacks, nothing he particularly  _ wants  _ to eat but he’ll do what he has to and he’ll make it last. The cart is full by the time he’s done but he gets to the checkout, still balancing the kid, arm getting tired.

The cashier is some college kid, scanning the items with an odd look on his face. “Just… adopted?” he asks, glancing at the kid. Din looks up, far more distracted by both loading the items onto the belt and keeping the kid from turning to face a camera.

“Luggage got lost,” he says, the lie slipping off his tongue with ease.

“Oh,” the cashier says, face morphed with understanding.

He grabs the bags, puts them back in the cart, and walks them out. Once he’s at the car, he sets to work on the car seat first—and it’s unreasonably difficult. But after far too long, he does manage to set it up and strap the kid in. He’s too sleepy to react much, and Din clicks the belts shut to keep him there. The rest of the things are loaded into the trunk, smaller items going into the new diaper bag. He leaves that in the back seat for access. Put the cart away, get in, and then they’re off, driving away from the shopping center without a hitch.

For just a few minutes, he lets himself relax.

The kid sleeps through the drive home, but once he’s up, he’s awake. He makes all sorts of noises at Din as they park, as he’s unstrapped, as Din gathers up their things and walks them in. He’s a little chatterbox of unintelligible sounds as though exercising the vocal cords but doesn’t demand a response from Din.

He turns the TV on, just to have something on in the background, and it’s a successful trick when the baby turns his head to stare at the news channel. It lets Din lay him down with ease, grabbing a fresh diaper, work the t-shirt off and over his head, to be gentle in making sure he’s clean. It takes an internet search, but he’s certain he knows how to do diapers.

The news report is about animals. The kid watches with big eyes, kicking his feet a bit but otherwise calm as Din applies the cream and slips the diaper beneath him. He wraps him up in it, careful to keep it snug without tightness, smoothing down the tabs. The baby looks up at him, then blows a raspberry with a smile. Din smiles back, grabbing his foot, and the kid shrieks before kicking, devolving into giggles.

_ “—gang violence in Los Angeles.” _

Din stops and looks up. The screen shows footage of the fight aftermath, the street easily recognizable, with totaled cars full of bullets and a few abandoned motorcycles. He stares at the motorcycles in particular, his stomach turning that they’d just be  _ abandoned.  _ For a moment, he desperately hopes that doesn’t mean their owners are dead.

He couldn’t…

He couldn’t.

_ “The LAPD reports that the violence was between two gangs, but that the fight had largely quieted when they arrived on the scene. The reason for the violence isn’t known, nor the identities of the suspected perpetrators. No bystanders were hurt. We’ll be reporting on this story as information becomes available.” _

Din frowns. No identities was… good. God knows Karga has influence with the cops—that they’ve been offered to have  _ problems  _ taken care of without payment or tracing, as long as they let the Guild do as they pleased even outside of their legal limits. Most of those jobs were hits given to newer Guild recruits. Din wasn’t going to touch that bullshit. Not with a damn pole, when cops were the last resort for people like him.

No doubt, the Guild’s reputation depended on staying out of the news for shit like this. So Karga had kept them out of the police report, even if it was known. But there was little to no reason to not name the Mandalorians. An advantage, really, to throw their people under the bus and assume it really was just  _ gang violence.  _ No one would be surprised. As enraging as it was, no one would really bat an eye.

It almost feels like a… peace offering.

Or Karga just didn’t want to make their surviving tribe into an enemy.

Din shakes off the thoughts as best he can and instead fetches the new clothes, the bags crinkling as he does. The kid is squirmy but he doesn’t really fight Din as he dresses him in the frog onesie, buttoning it up with a few solid  _ snaps. _ “There,” Din murmurs. “Good?”

The baby stares up at him, but his eyes are big with tears that begin to flood. His face twists up with discomfort and he begins to cry, growing more and more distressed with each passing second. Din stares at him, then feels his own stomach growl and he jumps up. “Hold on, hold on,” he mutters, rummaging through the bags for the formula.

It’s a few minutes more of crying before he has the kid sipping from a plastic cup he got from the bathroom, mentally kicking himself for forgetting a bottle  _ and  _ a bib. Instead, he’s careful in tilting the cup, letting the kid lie back against him with a washcloth beneath his chin.

He knows, he isn’t exactly winning an award for caretaking.

Eventually, the kid is content with his feeding and he’s crawling about on the floor as Din grabs his laptop. He’s sitting on the floor, rubbing at his eyes as he pulls up a map of their area, reassured only by the encryption programs that their tech-savant Mandalorians have made and installed for him. He isn’t overly reliant on tech, not when his training often accounted for tech turning on them through hacking or simple malfunction. He scans the nearby countryside, into the nearby states, looking up town names for their stats.

“Alright, kid,” he mutters. The baby looks up at his voice, then begins to crawl over. He coos as he starts trying to climb into Din’s lap and Din sets the laptop on the floor before lifting the kid to sit on his thigh. “... Let’s see. Sorgan. Never heard of it.” He plugs in the name and runs the search. “... Tiny population. A main street with a few shops. Mostly farms, and several hours away. Sounds perfect for us.”

The baby coos.

“Ready to lay low and stretch our legs for a while, you little monster?”

The baby looks up at him with big eyes. He blows a raspberry and reaches for Din’s face.

“Yeah, let’s go.”

Sorgan is a county roughly five hours away, across state lines. He doesn’t really care for long drives, is just so used to them at this point, but making the trip with an infant in his backseat turns out to be… different.

An extra hour has to be added on when the kid makes a mess in his diaper and cries to be changed, making Din careen towards the nearest rest stop just to get him to stop. Changing a diaper in a parking lot isn’t the future he saw for himself three days ago, but he’s holding his breath as he throws the dirty one away and redresses the kid in his onesie. Then his stomach growls, and the kid is still fussy, shoving practically his whole fist into his mouth as he kicks his feet.

“You’re hungry,” Din sighs. “Yeah, so am I.”

It’s an awkward arrangement, standing there for a near minute, sweating with visible heat waves around as he tries to figure this out in his head. The kid lets out soft whimpers of warning, muffled around his fist, before Din slips his hands beneath him to lift. He slides into the back seat and starts digging for the formula and a water bottle, letting out a sigh. “Look, neither of us is having a good time,” he mutters. “Don’t… don’t cry.”

Once the kid is fed and calm again, Din brings him up to hold on his shoulder, shutting and locking the door. He pulls his cap down over his eyes and walks inside.

They walk back out, with little incident, a few snacks heavier but with stretched legs.

The rest of the way is otherwise uneventful. The kid falls back into another nap, leaving Din with peace and quiet until they’re passing the sign welcoming them to Sorgan County. On the way in, they’re passing farms, fields of crops and then acres worth of fenced land housing animals, ponds in the distance with some barns and houses. Their largest town is the current destination, a main street full of shops, and when it comes into view he isn’t disappointed. There’s a small train station on the outside—largely, a raised platform beside some tracks with a sign of times. The main attraction seems to be a pub and restaurant, where a few cars are parked by the curb and a few people walk in and out. There are some shoppers down by other stores, but it has the little town feel he was hoping for.

He parks across from the bar, letting out a breath, and he’s quick to hop out and take a moment to stretch. It barely takes a moment before the kid is awake and watching him, starting to kick and fuss again in his seat. “Aaaaba!” he yells, squirming against the belt.

Din walks around to the door and opens it. A hot breeze blows past as he unstraps the kid, easing him out and into his arms. The kid sits on his hip, rubbing at his eyes as Din shuts the door, blinking against the sunlight before he hides his face in Din’s shirt. Din adjusts him, shoving his keys into his pocket, before he crosses the street. His cap gets tugged down again and he gets a few looks from others, but no one seems inclined to question him. His eyes dart around the room as he steps through the shadow of the doorway.

It’s a small restaurant, the pub off to one side, minimally crowded, smelling of smoked meat and bread. It’s decently populated for a small town nearing dinner time and the kid is turning to stare, eyes big as he drinks it all in. A sign hangs on the wall just inside, a cheerful “Please seat yourself!” written in bubbly chalk letters.  _ Alright, then.  _ He walks to a table beside the wall, empty and the furthest away from any company. It’s a booth, and he slides into it, holding the kid on his lap with one arm. The wood is smooth beneath him, and the baby begins to pat his hands against the rim of the circular table, blowing raspberries.

Din straightens up and picks up the kid, adjusting him in his lap, careful to not grip too tight against soft, delicate skin. He’s focused instead on looking around, eyes darting about the place, cautious for any ambush points. None that he’s noticed. The other customers are engrossed in their conversations—one group of men is particularly loud, their laughs booming, verging on obnoxious but at least far away. A single TV is playing a soccer match from the bar. He can hear the scraping of spatulas from the kitchen, the  _ thump  _ of the swinging door as the few servers come in and out with food. It’s calm, he thinks, with little danger around. This might’ve been the place for them. No hunter would follow them here.

Then, he notices the woman.

She’d noticed him first from across the room, sending a chill down his spine, her eyes already boring a hole into him. Their gazes lock and more for several seconds, they stare at each other, eyes narrowed and suspicious. Her black hair is braided back into a short ponytail, wearing a fitted black top with dark jeans and combat boots. She watches him even as she takes a swig from her beer, and Din isn’t distracted by even the baby’s shriek until the server is stepping in between their line of sight.

She gives him a bright smile, wiping her hands off on her apron. “Welcome, travelers,” she greets, a particular grin aimed at the child, who gurgles at her. “Can I get you anything to eat? Drink?”

“Just… water,” Din says. “And… something soft for the kid.”

He cringes at his own words but the server just continues to smile. “We’ve got some  _ delicious  _ applesauce, completely from local orchards,” she says. “I think he’ll love it. Anything else for you, sir? We have some exquisite beef for our burgers, locally brewed—if it isn’t noticeable, we like to support small businesses here in—”

“Just those,” Din says. His eyes dart towards the woman. “... How long has  _ she  _ been here?”

The server stops and turns to look back at the woman, biting her lip and letting out an unsure hum. Din taps his fingers against the table, knee bouncing beneath. “She’s… been around for a week or so?” she says. “I can’t really recall.”

“What’s her business here?”

“I—well—uh, no one ever really… has much business in  _ Sorgan,  _ we’re not quite—she…”

But Din is already reaching for his wallet and he slips out a fifty, setting it on the table.

“... doesn’t really strike me as a new—th-thank you, sir! I’ll be right back with your order. I’ll even throw in our spotchka drink, just for good measure.”

The server grabs up the bill and disappears across the room. Din sucks in a breath, then adjusts the baby in his lap. The kid is blowing a raspberry, reaching for the edge of the table, and Din grabs a napkin to wipe at his face. For just a moment, he tries to relax his shoulders, to just breathe.

But the woman is gone.

The air leaves his lungs and his heart begins to race, pumping at speed in his chest as he realizes the woman has completely disappeared from her seat. He begins to get up, the baby held against his side, before he’s putting the kid down on the seat and pulling another twenty from his pocket. He passes the server and shoves it out towards her, “Keep an eye on the kid.”

“Yes… sir,” she says, watching him with confusion.

The emergency exit is the nearest door and he storms through it, hitting the bar and walking out. It leads into a short alley, just a few meters wide. There’s a nearly-full dumpster, a few trash cans, a door for the next building. He looks around, down towards the main street and then turning back for the other end. It leads to a brick wall, but he can hear a car drive by. He walks over, then makes a short sprint and kicks up off the wall, grabbing onto the top of the brick. He glances on either side of the empty sidewalk, then sighs and drops down again, boots thumping against the pavement before he turns—

A weight crashes into his chest, sending him back against the wall with a grunt. Before he can open his eyes, he’s in pain, feeling throbs where his head connected with the brick. His skull feels almost shrunk around his brain and for a moment he’s woozy. But he opens his eyes to a fist coming at his face and he just ducks beneath it, slamming his shoulder into the torso of his attacker. They’re both taken to the ground, letting out hisses as they flatten.

She reacts fast, swinging a leg to get on top of him.

He throws his hands up to grab her bicep, stopping the punch before it can come. Fingers hook around the back of her knee and he wrenches them over, earning a loud grunt from them both. He’s fumbling for his gun, panic rising, stuck between pulling the weapon or protecting himself.

That stalemate is settled with a  _ punch  _ across his jaw, kicked off as he struggles to his feet.

She’s trained. That much is obvious. There’s a militaristic edge to her fighting, organized, taught skill behind movements. It’s the mix between desperate claws to stay alive and what’s been drilled into you, a mix that Din knows all too well. She matches him. Too well. Almost taking the edge in the fight, throwing him back against the walls even after he lands a solid punch. His beskar takes much of the brunt and earns a confused look when her fist connects with the metal, but they just continue on.

He can’t win outright. He knows these fights, had them all the time as a teenager. Take the hits. Just defend, strike where the opportunity opens, don’t let them pull the gun. They pull, you’re dead.  _ You don’t die until we say you die. _

But when she pulls, so does he, and they’re lying on the ground with forearms gripped together and barrels pointed at each other’s face. Their eyes meet, staring, both panting. Again, it’s a stalemate.

“Ashambaaa—“

Both jerk their heads to the side and Din finds himself staring at the kid. The side door is held open by the overhead lock and Din takes a deep breath, feeling the kid look back at him. He giggles at Din, then reaches down and grabs the pebble in front of him, shaking it.

They just stare at the kid. Then, the woman is looking at him, and Din sucks in a breath. “Drinks on me?”

She squints.

“Once the Empire fell, it was… freedom. Finally. Years of sacrificing everything, our lives and families and our futures? Nothing felt better.” Cara pauses, looking down at her drink, then up at Din. Her eyes roam over the kid, settled back into Din’s lap with the pebble in hand. “But what do you do with soldiers when their fight’s done? There was a power vacuum. Have to make sure it’s  _ your  _ new government that fills it up. So as soon as the celebrations are done, we’re… right back in that fight. Taking out the remaining Imps. Breaking up whatever surviving groups we can. We became peacekeepers. Now, we weren’t fighting the Empire, we were… fighting the same people we wanted to put their faith in us. Suppressing riots with whatever means necessary. Generals became bureaucrats and were more concerned about establishing themselves on top than the little ones on the bottom.”

“Don’t I know it,” Din mutters, his jaw tight.

Cara nods. “It was nothing I signed up for,” she says. “My problem was with the Empire, not the citizens who suddenly had no government helping them survive,” she says. “The people rioting—they needed food, water, amenities. They got it from the Empire. New Republic leaders were too busy to care.”

“They’re sellouts.” Din tightens his fists, careful to not bother the kid as he laps at the spoon of applesauce. “Rats calling themselves politicians while they let everyone else starve. Board themselves up in rich houses when the people try to change things for the better.”

Cara watches him, eyebrows raised. “Sounds personal,” she says. She takes a sip. “No idea what went on in Mandalore.”

“No one knows,” Din mutters. “Imps made sure of it. It was a genocide and the New Republic still takes their narrative.”

“You served?” Cara eyes the tattoos on his now-bare arms.

“Paramilitary. 22nd regiment.” He takes a sip of water. “A radical threat to the peace and prosperity the Empire has  _ kindly bestowed  _ upon Mandalore.” He rolls his eyes, spooning more applesauce, grumbling. The baby looks up at him, smacking his lips. “My group was the villain in the Empire’s story, and now the New Republic’s, too.”

Cara frowns. “Bullshit,” she sighs, voice full of sympathy. “It’s all bullshit.”

For a moment, they’re quiet. But he can feel her eyes roaming him. “That’s your language?” she asks, eyes fixed on the words curled around his bicep. “What’s it say?”

Din looks down. “Sayings,” he mutters.

“What’s the barcode?”

Din frowns at her, then looks down further at just beneath his arm, high up where the skin runs soft. Where it usually sits hidden, it’s revealed in the way he holds his arm up to feed the kid. “Not a barcode,” he mutters, tucking his arm in. “It’s…”

“Personal. Got it.”

That lets him relax.

“I’m sorry about earlier. You strolled in and had the bounty hunter look, and I figured you’d be here only if you had a fob on me.” Cara shrugs. “That’s why I came at you so hard.”

“I figured.”

“This has been a treat.” Cara looks at the kid, tapping on her drink, and the kid stares at her. She gives him a half-smile. “But if we’re both hiding from our problems—one of us is going to have to move on and I was here first.” She gives him a wink, then gets up and walks away. Din watches her go until she disappears through the door and out of sight. He lets out a sigh, then grabs a napkin and starts to wipe at the child’s face.

“Looks like this place is taken,” he grumbles, and the kid stares up at him.

_ “Who’s got the record?” _

_ “Braftin! You updated yet?” _

_ They’re spread around the rec room, freshly treated with bandages, ice, or heat. Everyone on their small team has an ice pack strapped to them somewhere, while Din has his leg propped up for a throbbing ankle. But they’re showered and dressed, able to relax for just a  _ minute.

_ “Gimme numbers,” Braftin says with a laugh, and he’s grabbing the dry eraser off the whiteboard’s shelf. “We got Wesson in the lead, then Djarin behind by two, yours truly, Trevon—“ _

_ “Thirteen!” Wesson says. _

_ “Seven.” _

_ “Nine.” _

“Six--  _ shut up, I was on overwatch!” _

_ Braftin’s hand moves fast, scribbling the numbers beneath the running tally, then goes back and adds up. After a moment, he pauses, then turns around. “Djarin,” he says. “Need your number, man.” _

_ All eyes turn to him. Din shifts, ice pack shifting with him, and he glances towards Wesson. “... Sixteen,” he says. _

_ Wesson stares at him with wide eyes while the rest of the room bursts into laughter. “Asshole!” he yells, grabbing a pillow to throw at Din. Din catches it with a smirk, dropping it to the floor. “When did you get over fifteen? I was with you the whole time!” _

_ Din shrugs. “You picked that trooper off the roof when we were heading out, but he just fell,” he says. “I saw him get up, picked him off.” _

_ “That was—I thought—” _

_ “So you had twelve,” Braftin says, struggling through his own laughter, before erasing Wesson’s tally. “Alright. Djarin’s got lead.” _

_ Wesson scowls. “I’m taking first again,” he mutters. “You kill-thief.” _

_ Din just shrugs as he storms past and watches his best friend go, a smile hidden behind his hand. “That was  _ gold,  _ man,” Trevon says with a laugh. _

_ They’re interrupted as a siren cuts through the peace, jerking them into movement, and they’re already ripping off the ice and running when the ground shakes. _

He can’t sleep. They’re not… nightmares, per se. He doesn’t wake screaming or even afraid. He doesn’t feel like his world is ending again, he’s not staring into the light that signaled it was all over. He’s just… sweaty. Unsettled. His stomach works itself into knots and the car feels stuffy, so as the kid continues to slumber away, he gets out for a walk.

The night air is warm, but not humid. Crickets chirp around him. He sheds the protection of his jacket, his cap, his mask, and just walks. They’re parked in a lot, just outside the main town, belonging to a little bike shop. The owner had eyed him earlier, but hearing the kid’s cries, seemed to decide against telling him to leave.

The car locks behind him. Just a few minutes. He rubs at his eyes and yawns, trying to urge the voices out of his head, the ones that belong to people long gone. He’s… fine. He’s been fine. He’s  _ had  _ to be fine. He’s had to function, regardless of what his own personal state is like. He lives to provide for other people, and if he doesn’t… who will? They’re all a little fucked up. Therapy, in the  _ normal sense,  _ isn’t…

He lets out a breath, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment before he rubs at them. The reality of his situation is washing over him but he’s got to pull himself together. He has no job and there’s a helpless child relying on him now. Their first priority has to be finding shelter that isn’t his car.

_ Get it together, Djarin. _

It’s hard to ignore the past when you can hear its voice so clearly.

He’s turned around and is coming back to the car when he hears…  _ hooves.  _ Brows furrowed, he digs into his pocket for his mask and slips it on before looking back. He stares at two men, saddled on horses, who trot in his direction. It’s… odd. But he just turns back around and keeps walking. Small towns can be strange, and the car is barely a minute away.

“Sir?”

He shoves his hands in his pockets, skin dragging against denim.

_ “Sir?” _

He lets out a sigh. “What?” he asks, looking up.

“I—uh—” One stutters.

“Raiders,” the other says.

“We have money!”

Din stops and looks up at them. “... You think I’m some kind of mercenary?”

“You’re a Mandalorian.” When Din only stares at him, then sighs, the man just continues with the same nervous energy as his horse steps in place. “You  _ are  _ a Mandalorian, aren’t you? That’s—that’s the Mandalorian symbol, right? The… mytha—mytho… mythosaur.”

“It is,” Din says, and he turns to keep walking.

“Sir, I’ve read about your… your country—your tribe? If  _ half  _ of what I’ve read about your people is true, then—“

The second man jerks the reins and the horse surges in front of Din, cutting him off. Din stops on his heel, looking up, and the man looks back down. “We have money,” he says, voice firm. At least  _ getting  _ to the point.

“How much?”

The man reaches into his pocket and pulls out a wad of cash. It’s… not impressive. It’s held together by a rubber band and Din takes it, looking it over. It’s mostly one-dollar bills. A lot of fives. A few twenties and a single fifty. He frowns. Nowhere close to a single hunt’s pay. “It’s everything we have,” the man insists, resignation in his voice. “Our entire harvest was stolen.”

“It’s not enough,” Din says, handing it back. Once it’s out of his hand, he steps around the horse and continues walking. His boots crunch against the gravel, a warm breeze blowing past.

“But—“ He just continues walking. “You don’t even know what the job is!”

“I know it’s not enough. Good luck,” he calls.

“But this is—this is everything we have, we’ll… we’ll give you more after the next harvest!”

He reaches the car, ignoring the sounds of hooves that follow him, and instead turns his attention to the sounds coming from inside. The baby is awake and fussing, pulling weakly at the straps that dare restrain him like they do, kicking his feet as he looks around. Din unlocks with the key fob, then opens the door and starts to unstrap the kid. The hooves stop as he eases the infant into his arms, little hands grabbing onto him as a wet face buries in his shoulder.

There’s a sigh. “Let’s head back,” one grumbles.

“Took us the whole day to get here!” Their voices are muted and Din looks up to see they’ve turned around. “Now we have to go  _ back.  _ To the middle of  _ nowhere.  _ With no  _ protection…” _

He sways with the kid, watching them go. The kid quickly begins to calm down and Din looks at him as he strokes soft dark hair, feeling the baby mold against him as he settles once again. He frowns, then looks up. “Do you have someplace to stay?” he asks. He steps around the car, adjusting the kid. “You said you’re in the middle of nowhere.”

The horses stop and the two men twist in their saddles to look back. “... Yeah,” one says, but they seem to realize his meaning and they brighten up. “Yeah! We have room.”

The kid lets out soft coos and he twists in Din’s arms to look. His eyes widen at the sight of the horses and he kicks his feet, eyes big, letting out an enthusiastic shriek. The two men smile. “Good,” Din says. He shoves his hand into his pocket, pulling out his phone. “Got an address?”

One is quick to climb down, taking his own. In seconds, Din taps it in, ignoring the kid’s attempts to reach for the phone. “Okay,” he says. “One more thing. Give me the money.”

The farmer frowns, but he nods and holds out the cash.

“You know this is barely anything, right?” Cara asks, reclining back in his passenger seat. She flips through the cash, creating the satisfying sound of paper snapping together. “Looked a lot more tempting when you handed it over.”

“It’s what they’ve got right now,” Din says, glancing towards the GPS. The two farmers weren’t kidding—their ‘community farm’ is a good drive, and since they haven’t yet caught up to the people on horseback, he’s certain they know a shortcut the satellites don’t. “We take care of this little raider problem, and we’ve both got a place to hole up in. Neither of us has to move, it’s in the middle of nowhere, and we’ll be safe from hunters.”

“Bold words,” Cara says.

“I’ve been in the hunting game for years,” Din says. “Those fobs don’t do shit until you’re close. I’ve never heard of this place before now -- most of our targets have tried blending into places like New York City. They’re more likely to pass on the highways and interstates than to ever come within the next thirty miles.”

Cara shifts. She turns and looks back at the baby, who’s napping away in his car seat. “This munchkin is the one they’re looking for?”

“I don’t know what they want with him.”

“Why would anyone hunt down a baby? He looks—is he even a year old?”

“I don’t know. I know…” He hesitates.

Cara looks at him. “Know what?”

He frowns, hidden behind a mask with only eyebrows for expression. “There’s… I don’t know, two possibilities that come to mind.”

“Like what?”

Din frowns deeper, hands gripping the leather wheel, and he closes his eyes tight for just a brief moment before he’s looking again. For those moments, the car is silent, both unwilling to break it. “... The only kids I’ve hunted are teenagers,” he says. “Older ones. They pulled some shit and ran, and hunting them just brought them back to their parents.”

“... Okay,” Cara says.

“The younger ones—” Din hesitates again. “The Guild can see the worst in humanity. I’ve never done it. I’m not hurting kids.”

“Hurting…”

“A six-year-old disappears, you call the cops,” Din says. “They’re probably just lost. Cops find them, bring them home. Coming to the Guild, that’s serious shit. That’s been for the kids who know how to avoid the cops.” He bites his lip. “They get younger, and… they don’t tend to be the same deal. The people looking for the kid aren’t always the parent.”

Cara stares at him.

“They’re not trying to get the kid back, they’re trying to tie up their loose ends.”

“You just…” Cara looks horrified, and his stomach turns. “To kill them? A  _ kid?” _

“They saw something they shouldn’t have.” Din grips the wheel tighter. “I’ve… I know it’s bad. I’ve passed every time I got offered a puck like that, and it’s been very few. Maybe… two, in almost ten years. We do the hunting, not… that part.”

“You just hand them over.”

“That’s the job.”

“They pretend to be the parents?”

“... No. They don’t usually pretend.”

Cara twists to look back at the kid, then out the window.

“I  _ don’t  _ think that’s what this is,” Din says. He checks the GPS again, palms sweaty from just those thoughts. “He’s not even a year old, I don’t think. He won’t remember anything happening right now. He can’t even talk. No one’s going to kill a kid this young to keep them from testifying.”

Cara looks over at him.

Din pauses again. “You’re not going to believe me.”

“Take the shot.”

Din makes a face, his heart racing in his chest, and he glances up into the mirror. The baby shifts, but makes no sign of waking up. “He has… powers,” he says. “I don’t… it’s like a damn TV show or movie. It’s… X-Men kind of shit. I don’t know. The day I found him, I watched him lift a frog into the air with his  _ mind.” _

Cara stares at him with big eyes. “Did I…” she coughs. “Did I hit you too hard?”

“No.” He grumbles. “I’m telling you, he has powers. And when I handed him over, it was to an Imp scientist. They were…  _ thrilled  _ when I brought him in. When I broke him out again, he was on an operating table. Drugged and hooked up to machines.” He shakes his head. “I think it has something to do with the powers. They’re trying to… to take them, or something.”

Cara continues to stare but then looks back at the kid. “Holy shit,” she whispers.

They lapse into silence with only the sounds of the car as music. The sun begins to rise on the horizon, the sky turning pink but the sun still unseen behind the trees. He’s got… maybe two hours of rest. He can survive till late afternoon, maybe, but it’s been years since he had to stay up for days.

“Is that how you were able to hand him over?” Cara asks. “He was too young to be one of  _ those  _ kids?”

Din goes to flip his signal for a turn, but his hand pauses. After a moment, he taps it up and makes the turn, going from pavement to a dirt road. He takes a deep breath as they begin down the long path, hands tight. “I don’t know what I was thinking,” he says, voice quiet. “Not like a Mandalorian.”

Cara looks at him but doesn’t press.

They pass through a long field, the sun beginning to rise higher until they come through a brief wall of trees and the road tilts up. They pass through bushes until they come over the hill and are level again.  _ Shallow Ponds Farm _ is written on a sign, the paint worn by weather, and both houses and barns are in view. The area seems surrounded by forest, but squinting, he can see paths leading out where there are pastures. Various ponds surround the grouped houses, with several people half-submerged with baskets around. More people walk around, carrying things or leading animals. They drive slow, taking it in, just as the kid wakes and begins to fuss again.

It’s a real  _ community,  _ he thinks.

Their arrival is noticed and already, a group of children is running over, adults behind them. “Looks like they’re happy to see us,” Din mutters before getting out.

“Looks like it,” Cara says, and while the kids crowd at the door to look at the baby, they begin unloading for this opportunity at a new life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The [discord](https://discord.gg/UwZuG6N)  
> Follow me on [tumblr](https://coffee-quill.tumblr.com/)


	5. Sleepy Town

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Terrifying?” Cara says, and it comes with a laugh but feels forced as anything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

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His footsteps creak against the wooden floors, looking around at tiny space, breathing in the scent of sawdust and hay. The shed is small but clean, the storage pushed back against one wall while the other side is cleared for their living space. There’s a bed, low to the ground but far better than the car could ever be. White sheets and pillows, light multicolored and woven blankets thrown on top. At the foot of it is an old wooden crib, already made up with bedding, waxed and sanded but creaking.

With the baby cradled in one arm, he examines it all from the outside and lifts his hand to knock on the doorframe. The woman standing inside turns and gives him a smile, folding up one of the blankets before coming to the window. “Come in,” she says, and he nods, ducking to step inside. His footsteps creak against the floorboards. He walks to the crib and eases the boy down into it, earning an interested coo. “I hope this is okay for you. I wish we had more, but… we don’t get many visitors.”

“It’ll do fine,” Din says. He unclips his rifle to settle it down on the bed and slips his backpack off his shoulders. As the woman opens up the windows and ties back the shades, he looks over. She’s… around his age, he’d say. Her skin has a deep tan and her hair is long, braided back and hanging down to her waist. Her dress is blue, leggings beneath that disappear into rubber boots fit for working in mud. She steps back from the window, glancing at him, and his eyes dart beyond her. The window has a good view of the center of the village—a large fire pit that seems to be what the houses circle around. Paths link all the houses, circling around the area.

“There’s some more blankets here, if you need them,” she says. “And extra bug spray in the dresser, there. The insects around can really bite this time of year.”

“Thank you. That’s… very kind.”

“I’m Omera.”

“... Mando.”

She just gives him a smile, unquestioning of the name, and he throws a glance towards the kid, who’s exploring every inch of his new crib. He brings his bag up onto his bed and unzips it, breathing in the smell of the wood, hearing the cicadas scream from their trees. The baby lets out a coo. 

A shadow passes by the doorway.

Din whips around, hand dropping to his holster, and the shadow jumps back with a frightened squeak. Omera has a vaguely amused expression as she looks at Din, then walks out and reaches beyond the doorway, guiding a young girl into the shed. The girl stares at Din with big eyes, molding against Omera’s side, arms wrapped around.

“This is my daughter, Winta,” Omera says, and it isn’t a surprise. They look so similar. “I’m sorry. She isn’t used to strangers.”

He gives the girl a slight nod, still tense, and it seems to put her a little more at ease. Omera smiles, running her fingers through Winta’s hair. “This man is going to help us,” she says, looking down at her. “He’s going to get rid of the bad ones, and we’ll never see them again.”

Winta looks at him. “Thank you,” she whispers, and Din gives her another nod.

“I’ll do what I can,” he says, his voice just as soft.

Winta’s eyes drift towards the baby and her expression turns to one of adoration before she looks up at her mother. They just trade a warm look. “We’ll make breakfast soon,” Omera says. “... Let’s let the nice man have some space.”

Winta nods, and Din watches them go. He lets his shoulders drop and takes a deep breath, turning to his bag once again. They were nice. Kind. He’s both surprised, but… not. He didn’t really have expectations going into this, had little information to go off of, and the villagers are welcoming towards two strangers who have come to help them with a problem. He knows he shouldn’t put his eggs all in one basket about this place, but… they seem  _ genuine. _

The kid coos from his bed, lying on his back with toes in his mouth.

Din looks over. “You aren’t very concerned,” he says.

The baby stares at him.

“Guess I shouldn’t be, either.”

The scent of breakfast is… incredible. Smells of bacon, kielbasa, ham, and potatoes float across the farming village and are utterly mouthwatering. It’s almost going to drive him insane, his stomach howling for food, and he’s jealous as the kid gets his breakfast of formula with no wait time at all. Then, he’s just sitting in Din’s lap.

Din and Cara, even with plates piled with the delicious food, don’t want to wait to get started. With Omera, Caben, and Stoke in front of them, they’re quick to ask the details. “Anything you can tell us about them,” Din says. “Where they hole up, when they come, what they take. What kind of ordinance they have, how much heat are they packing?”

The three villagers all exchange glances, but it’s Omera who speaks up as Din and Cara begin eating. “They come from the west,” she says, pointing to the side. Din looks over and can see the pathway and fencing that leads towards a field. “I can’t think of a… a pattern when they come. They do tend to come when there’s a harvest to take. Sometimes they just come for the animals. They slaughter a few and disappear. There isn’t any rhyme or reason when it comes to time.”

“And weapons?”

“Guns,” Caben says. “They shoot in the air when they first come, and… it’s at least like a warning. They’re… military-grade, I think. Rifles. What you’d think soldiers use. They throw things that make smoke. We just… run inside when they come.” He glances at Stoke. “It… always feels cowardly. We know.”

“It’s keeping you alive,” Cara says.

That seems to settle them a little more. Omera brushes strands of hair behind her ear. “There’s… maybe forty of them?” she says. “It may be a little lower, but it may just be that this place is small. They come in, grab whatever they can reach, and leave again.”

Cara swallows a mouthful of eggs. “Must be a camp somewhere,” she mutters. She looks at Din. “Base of operations.”

“So… what?” Stoke asks. “You’ll wait until they come and then scare them off? You brought a lot of guns, too.”

“No, too simple,” Din says, and he takes a bite before thinking further on his words. “... No. Waiting here and taking on that many will just get people killed. We need to get as much info as we can. We need to scope out the area, see if we can find their encampment, the numbers they’re boasting and what their supplies are. No point in making a plan now when the intel is unreliable.”

Cara nods in agreement. “Later, though,” she mutters. “... Need sleep.”

“Need sleep,” Din mutters.

After breakfast, Din isn’t exactly sure what happens with the baby. He’s exhausted and in need of sleep, and the little one has found himself some friends with the village’s children and their parents. He’s in good hands, or seems to be, and Din only stumbles his way back to the little shed that is their new home. With a full stomach, he kicks off his shoes and falls into bed.

It takes time before he falls into a nap. His dreams are brief images, short moments with his former squadmates before they keep morphing into new things. His first days with  _ Kyr’tsad,  _ afraid of everything that moved. When his father first taught him to hold a gun. Every fight in the middle of camp, when he’d been thrown into the dirt again and again. The whispers about an Empire that had come to Mandalore, how the adults spoke of it in hushed, venomous whispers. A child that cries out for him, but cannot be found in the darkness.

When he wakes, startled by something he can’t remember, it takes him several seconds to realize where he is. He stares around at the shed, taking deep breaths as he examines it all. He’s alone like when he fell asleep, the crib still empty. Outside, he can hear the faint sounds of the village at work. He rubs at his eyes, head and body aching, before he gets up and starts towards the door. He grabs his cap and tugs it on, stepping outside.

He nearly walks straight into Cara.

“Hey, hotshot.” She grins at him, a familiarity between them as though they’ve known each other for years rather than a day. “Let’s go.”

She grabs his arm and leads him out towards the forest. With a huff, Din grabs his mask from his pocket and slips it on as they follow the dirt path leading away from the houses. It slopes downwards, speeding up their walk, and they pass an old wooden fence with an open corral gate. “This should be the direction,” Cara says. “They said they come from the path. There was that rain shower yesterday, there might be tracks to find.”

“Hopefully,” Din mutters, rubbing at his eyes.

By the time they’re deep into the forest, he’s awake and alert. Yes, like Cara mentioned, the ground is softened beneath their feet, tracks left from the soles of his boots. He huffs, sweating in his layers, feeling the humidity that thickens the air. He reaches back and runs a hand over the back of his neck, wiping away sweat, almost tempted to take off his jacket if it didn’t mean leaving himself unprotected. He glances towards Cara. He’s certain they look like idiots, wandering around with eyes glued to the floor.

But then he sees the cut branches.

“Hey,” he mutters, and he slips past Cara to come towards them. He gestures up towards the trees, stepping over the fallen branches. “These look like storm damage to you?”

Cara walks over, twigs crunching beneath her feet, and she frowns up at the trees. For a few moments, they look around in silence, pacing the area before she points down further into the woods. “It’s a path,” she says. “Not just a few trees.”

“Something big came through,” Din says with a nod.

“This doesn’t seem like farm machinery.” Cara looks around and shakes her head. “Something tall. On a path.”

“What are we dealing with?” Din mutters.

“I don’t--”

“Here.”

Din starts off towards the side of the supposed path. “Mando!” Cara calls, but he hops over a grouping of rocks and jogs down a short slope. She follows at his back and they stop, looking down at a muddy path. It’s full of shoe prints, different tracks with different appearances crossing over each other. They both stop to look down at them, then Cara glances at Din, and he returns the look.

“At least fifteen or twenty,” he mutters. “They all came through. Probably leaving room for whatever craft they were piloting. Too muddy for the wheels so they marched here. The ridge gives them cover anyway, so farmers in the field can’t stop anything until they climb right up into the village.” He pauses and twists, looking around. “They’re really coming from the north, but they must cut around and actually enter from west. The trees give them too much cover.”

When he receives silence, he turns and looks at Cara. She just looks at him, eyebrows raised. “Whoa, Sherlock Holmes. Chill it with the deduction.”

Din rolls his eyes. “Don’t call me that.” He points down the small creek. “There’s a dirt path leading up from there. The ridge gets steep everywhere else, we can’t even see the field from here. My squad would use natural formations like this all the time in Mandalore. These guys don’t strike me as military renegades, but who knows?”

“It’s a start,” Cara says, and she crosses her arms, looking down towards the other end leading away from the farm. Then she pauses and starts back up on the ridge, crushing lines of ivy beneath her boots. “... Uh. Mando. Thinking about it, it could have been--”

But Din sees the flash of grey between the trees and Cara’s voice is lost on him before he’s pushing off the ground into a sprint. “Hey!” he yells, dashing between the trees, nearly tumbling when the ground drops beneath him and he lands hard on his ankles with a hiss. He’s not a fucking runner anymore, he thinks with frustration, far too out of breath as his lungs fill with the thick humid air. But his focus is on the raider trying to escape, a man with patched grey clothing and a rifle on his back, binoculars at his side. Din scowls.

He won’t shoot. He can hit a moving target but he doesn’t dare fire a shot. He doesn’t know if the raiders’ base is around, if the raider in front of him is running there or just away. Behind, he can hear Cara following, and he’s sweating through his clothes like no tomorrow.  _ Fuck, fuck.  _ Muscles burn. If he wasn’t awake before, he is now.

“Hey—“

The raider stops, leaning forward to look down, and it’s the moment that Din can catch up. He doesn’t hesitate—never has in these moments, hesitation beaten out of his instincts as a teenager—and dives forward, tackling the raider around the waist.  _ Shit,  _ he thinks after, when they’re both sent over the edge and down a short fall, dropping for a good two seconds until they hit the ground in a patch of old leaves. The breath is forced out of him, his forearms taking the brunt, but the raider just groans beneath him. For a moment, neither move, Din lying on top of the other. But the adrenaline continues to pump and he pushes up, taking advantage of the other man’s stun to pull his knife from his boot. “Don’t move,” he hisses, jamming his knee into the other’s back. He receives a groan.  _ “Don’t. Move.” _

The man growls in another language. It’s guttural, something like German but too far from it. He shoves back against Din but can’t dislodge him. Din reaches in and grabs handcuffs that sit on the inside of his jacket, locking around one wrist and then fighting to get the other. Once he’s secured, Din gets up and rolls him over, just as Cara comes down from another direction. “Fuckin’ scout,” Din says, pulling the guy onto his knees. “Speak English?”

The raider glares at him with the most hateful look possible. Din just flips his knife to an undergrip. He steps behind him. “If you’re useless,” he says, “I’m not going to waste my time. English, yes or no?”

“Fuck off,” the raider spits, voice thick with an accent Din doesn’t recognize.  _ “Mandalorian.” _

Din looks down at him, just allowing a smile to cross his face before he steps around the raider again. “I’m asking you once,” he says. “Where’s your camp?”

The man scowls.

_ “Once,”  _ Din says.

“Go to he—“

“You have an AT-ST,” Cara says, stepping closer, her voice cutting through. She crosses her arms and the raider stares at her. “That’s what cut off those branches? Your little group has old Imperial tech?”

The raider doesn’t speak but his eyes widen just a little. Din watches, then looks at Cara, and they both nod to each other. “Good,” he says. “Now answer mine. Where’s the camp?”

The raider stares up at him, expression morphing back into disgust, and Din grabs a fistful of the man’s front shirt to jerk him close. “Tell me,” he growls, voice low and gravelly, “or I’ll put this knife through your throat and burn your corpse into nothing.”

“Mando,” Cara says. “Just wai—“

But the raider just spits into his face and Din scowls. He steps a foot behind the raider and jerks his head back, the knife sliding across his throat, sounds of gasped choking filling the air. The raider reaches up to claw at his wound before Din plants a foot in his back, kicking him down into the dirt. Cara watches with a stony expression, arms crossed. It doesn’t take long until the raider has stopped moving, and then Din is grabbing him beneath the arms, starting to lug him. “I hear water that way,” he mutters. “I have matches—burn and scatter.”

Cara doesn’t move, just watching him. “You didn’t have to do that,” she says.

“If they’re not talking, they’re not worth the resources,” Din says, stepping back once.

“The only resource there was  _ time,”  _ Cara says.

“Time is the only resource you can’t get  _ back,”  _ Din snaps, and he drops the body. “We could steal more guns off the troopers’ bodies and take whatever we had to but we couldn’t get back time. Mandalore waited until the Empire had already taken damn power to do anything. We waited on the chance that things could go back to normal. And then our politicians were their politicians.” He lets out a furious breath. “Waiting to get intel from a captive was enough time for them to kill my entire squad and then destroy Mandalore in one night. Enough time and they’ll raze this town, too.”

Cara doesn’t respond. She just stares at him, eyes wide with… horror, or fear, or simply raw understanding. He doesn’t care. He tightens his jaw and picks up the raider again, beginning to drag him, and after a few seconds Cara joins him, grabbing the feet to carry. Din walks back, following the sound of running water nearby, old leaves smushed soft beneath his boots. They walk and walk until they reach the river—it’s small, but enough.

A few minutes later, they stand together several paces away as the body burns on the sandy rocks. They’re both silent, watching, and the scent of burning flesh can’t be filtered by his mask. But it isn’t a strange smell to him, anyway, as revolting as it is. When the flames die down, the remains are cast into the water, carried away by the current. They begin to walk back, and though he’s sure of himself, he can’t  _ not  _ feel the tension between them.

“Sorry,” he mutters. “That was…”

“Terrifying?” Cara says, and it comes with a laugh but feels forced as anything. For a moment, they’re both silent. “... The hell happened in Mandalore?”

Din looks at the ground as they walk. “Only terrible things,” he says, his voice quiet. “Think of every war crime you could possibly commit against a population. Think of getting away with every single one. Think of the entire world supporting it.”

“How?” Cara demands. “Plenty of the world hated the Empire, how…”

“How else do you wage genocide?” Din demands back. “You frame the victims as savages. You break down their reputation. Deport the media, any foreign correspondents who might blow the whistle to the rest of the world. Replace it with state sponsored media, control the government, tell the rest of the world that your victims are the enemy. They might’ve hated the Empire, but the Empire taught them to hate us more.”

Cara stares at him. “You fought against it,” she says.

“Imps called us terrorists. We were freedom fighters. Whatever you want to call it.” Din lets out a breath. “Mandalorians saved me as a child. They took me in when I was orphaned and they raised me to be a soldier like them. When the Empire took over, it was… years before we even had the resources to fight back. I was a teenager when we delivered the first blow. But I’d trained since I was eight for it.”

“You were a child soldier?” Cara whispers.

“We were all  _ soldiers,”  _ Din says. “The Empire doesn’t care what your age is when they kill you.” He pauses. “Eight years old or six months. They don’t  _ care.” _

They make the rest of the walk in silence. It weighs heavy between them—what they’d just done, what Din said. Blood covers his gloves, accidentally brushed against his shirt, and as the gate creaks open with their return, some of the villagers are right there to inquire about their search. But they stare at the blood and Din just looks at Omera. “Need a shower,” he mutters.

She looks at him with wide eyes, but nods. “Okay,” she says.

Omera’s house is nice. The decoration is modest—a little bit of art on the walls, just some painted canvases, and a few vases with flowers to brighten up the rooms. It’s small, but not uncomfortably so, a perfect fit for a small family. Din showers first, scrubbing away the sweat and discomfort of the last hour, and Cara gets in after. He has the master bedroom to change in, getting into another pair of jeans and a grey t-shirt, leaving his jacket off for now. His cap presses down on damp, curling hair, and gets his shoes back on. After his laces are tied, he straightens up and looks around the room. But at the same time, averts his gaze back to the floor between his feet.

Omera’s bedroom is clean and tidy. There’s nothing intimate or private lying out in plain sight, something that would be reassuring if the act of looking at  _ anything  _ didn’t make him feel as though he was violating her privacy. He could just walk downstairs, down to the kitchen, where she’d promised to make them a light lunch. But he finds himself paralyzed in place, unwilling to move. He doesn’t want to stay in this room but he doesn’t want to go be alone with Omera, forced to make small talk where he’ll certainly make a fool of himself.

His training didn’t exactly cover how to talk to women.

But Cara will need the room, and Din forces himself up and down the hall. He’ll ask about the kid—where he is right now. That should start the conversation. But… possibly lead to questions about the kid he can’t handle. He stops at the top of the stairs, freezing up, and bites his lip. Fuck. He doesn’t think the kid looks all that much like him, but there’s a good chance the farmers will all assume that he contributed half the baby. Wasn’t that the usual assumption?

For non Mandalorians?

In Mandalore, you didn’t ask. It didn’t matter whether the kid looked like their parent—whether they did or didn’t, they were that person’s child. Din had looked similar to his adoptive father by chance alone. But the baby in his custody doesn’t look much like him at all, and—

_ The hell are you doing? _

He shakes the ridiculous thoughts away and begins down the stairs. The kitchen is just a U-turn from the bottom of the stairs and he walks over. The house is a comfortable temperature, with sunlight streaming through the windows to brighten it up, and on the counter are two plates with sandwiches. Set out beside them is a plate of brownies, pieces stacked, and his stomach growls with hunger. He steps over to look at the sandwiches when a voice calls.

“You look much better.”

Din looks up at Omera, who walks through with a smile. Her dress is traded with a simple white top and jeans, and she comes over to grab two glasses out of the cabinet. Din stands still, watching as she gets out a pitcher from the fridge and fills the glasses with lemonade. She looks up at him and gives him a smile, and his stomach flutters.

_ Don’t,  _ some part of him begs, but he just smiles back weakly. After a few moments longer, he manages to ask, “Do you know where the baby is?”

Omera looks up and smiles. “The other kids have been bringing him along on their adventures,” she says, and she grabs the lemonade and a plate and holds them out to Din. He takes them, swallowing, and for a moment there’s a pause where Omera only seems to look past him. Then she smiles, “They should be out there,” and steps by to go to the front door. Din watches, then follows, passing over the creaking floorboards. Omera opens the front door with a louder squeak and beckons him through, following after. There’s a plastic table with plastic chairs on the patio, shielded from the sun by a fabric awning. Din sets the glass and plate down, then hears laughter and looks over.

A few kids are around in a group, smiling and giggling together. The older ones are skipping along the path or on tricycles while Winta is pulling along a plastic red wagon, where the baby sits alongside another toddler girl. The baby is wide-eyed and staring at everything, grasping the side of the wagon.

“They’re having fun,” Omera says with a smile. “... Your boy is very cute.”

“He is,” Din says.

“How old is he?”

“... Six, seven months?” Omera gives him an odd look and Din hesitates. “He isn’t  _ mine.  _ I’m protecting him. There’s no one else to take care of him.”

Omera frowns, and her expressions turns into a sympathetic one. “He has no one else?” she says, voice soft, and she looks towards the kids as they move up the path. “No parents?”

“Not that I know of,” Din says. He shakes his head. “Some bad people want him. I don’t know why. But that’s… what I’m doing. Protecting him. A place like this, so quiet and out of the way, it might… it might be what we need to lay low.”

Omera smiles. “Except for the raiders,” she says.

Din looks over, then cracks a smile. “Except for the raiders, yeah,” he says, and for a moment their gazes hold. His stomach is fluttering, and then he grabs the sandwich to eat, cursing in his own head. It’s ridiculous to turn to mush under the attention of an attractive woman. Not that he finds her—he doesn’t… She’s not. Well, she is, but—

_ Get your shit together, Djarin.  _ He can hear Wesson’s teasing voice.  _ You’re never going to get past the flirting stage if you can’t even talk to them. _

It can’t be flirting if you’ve just met.

The door creaks again and Cara steps through the door, saving him from the awkward silence with her presence. “Hey,” she says, her still wet and falling loose, and Din nods. She comes to sit at the table, grabbing her sandwich, and opens her mouth to speak when a wailing starts from the kids. They each look over, and it takes Din a moment to realize  _ his  _ kid is the one crying. He’s on his feet in an instant, coming to the edge of the porch, and sees the kids have stopped. He expects to find the baby on the ground, fallen out of the wagon, or something equally as terrible. But instead, the baby still sits in the wagon, crying anyway.

“He just started…” Winta says weakly as Din comes over, still gripping the wagon’s handle. “I thought he was okay!”

“It’s fine,” Din mutters. The kid doesn’t look hurt in any way, even as he sobs, and as Din comes over he just reaches a hand up. Din bends down and picks him up. “Babies cry.”

In Din’s arms, the baby begins to relax, burying his face in Din’s shoulder. Din rubs his back as he returns to the porch, murmuring soft words in Mando’a until he reaches the step. “Hey, Bean,” Cara greets with a smile, and the baby looks at her. Din settles back into his seat, the kid settled in his arm and against his ribs. The baby seems content there, sniffling as the tears stop and he cuddles against Din. “Want to be back with Dad, huh?”

Din glances at Cara. The baby looks at her, sticking a thumb in his mouth, still letting out a hiccup. Din sips the lemonade, brushing the comment off. He’s not a dad. Protection isn’t the same as adoption, he thinks.

“How did your scouting go?” Omera asks.

Cara and Din both pause and look at each other. “We found some things,” Cara says, and Din can feel her side-eye. “We need to… talk about it first.”

“I’ll take that as a cue to leave?” Omera says, her voice light hearted and without offense.

“Maybe,” Cara says.

Omera just nods and gets up, stepping around them back into the house. Din adjusts the baby, who seems to only focus now on napping against Din. His dark hair is tousled from shoving his head against Din’s arm, now squirming until he’s found a comfy position to lay in. When Din sips more lemonade, he reaches up a hand, cooing.

“No,” Din says. “You don’t drink this.”

The baby pouts.

“Not falling for that.”

Cara smiles, then shifts in her seat, leaning back. “So,” she says. “They have an AT-ST.”

“Two of us against an entire group of raiders and a fucking AT-ST,” Din mutters. “We could’ve set some traps for the raiders but this? Nothing here is going to provide cover against those guns. We’re outmatched beyond measure here.”

“Nothing to do that doesn’t end in us  _ and  _ these people dying,” Cara says, “Unless you got friends to call?” Din shakes his head and she lets out a sigh. For a moment, they’re quiet, and only the baby lets out a sleepy mumble. His eyes are shut, near dead to the world. “... I’m only seeing one option here that gets everyone here out alive.”

Din glances at her, then nods. “They have to leave,” he says.

Cara nods, lips pursed, and they watch the people walk. The cicadas are loud. They can hear splashing in the ponds, the neighing of horses in the distance, Din can see where chickens are roaming about their pen. It’s so unbelievably calm here and yet the sense of safety, community, security, is fractured by the threat looming over them all.

“Call everyone together,” Din says, and he stands. “I’m going to put him down and we’ll tell them.”

“They won’t like it,” Cara says.

“No one would,” Din says, “but it’s for their own good.”

“Bad news. You can’t live here anymore.”

The stunned silence turning into protests isn’t a surprise. Not in the least.  _ “Nice  _ bedside manner,” Cara mutters.

“Straight to the point,” Din says with a shrug. “You can do better?”

“Can’t do any worse.”

Din steps back and leans against the house. Cara can try to reason with them as much as she wants, explain exactly why the AT-ST is a hopeless enemy to fight against with their resources. But no one wants to evacuate, not from a home they’ve lived in for so long.

“We can  _ learn!” _

“I’ve seen that thing take out entire companies of _soldiers_ in a matter of _minutes!”_ Cara insists. “There isn’t a choice here. That AT-ST is built for war, and no matter how well trained we are, two soldiers aren’t enough to take on the raiders _and_ the mech. It isn’t possible. The best choice here is to _go.”_

“We aren’t leaving.” It’s Omera’s voice, firm, Winta pulled close against her. Her gaze turns from Cara to Din, her expression hardened with determination. Din frowns.

Cara shakes her head. “You  _ can’t  _ fight that thing,” she says.

“... Unless we show them  _ how,”  _ Din says. Cara turns to look at him, a frown on her face, as the farmers all break into agreement. He meets her eyes and nods, arms crossed, before he looks to Omera. She begins to smile at him, still hugging Winta, and Din hides a smile behind a stone expression. “We’ll have to train them. Teach them to fight. It will take time, but we have it.”

Cara eyes him.

“We’ll start tomorrow,” he says, voice loud enough to reach the others. They all stop to listen with eagerness and Din shifts his feet, standing straight again. “Be ready to handle a gun.” And with the final word, he starts off the porch and back towards their little shed to check on the kid.

Cara follows, jogging to walk beside him. “You really think we can  _ train  _ them?” she asks. “We can’t turn them into soldiers just like that.”

“We don’t have to,” Din says, and he reaches out to ease open the door. He’s quiet as he steps into the shed, glancing towards the baby as he sleeps. His voice lowers and he sits on his bed. “... We teach them to shoot. Create a form of barrier to keep the raiders back. Teach some hand to hand fighting in case any raider breaks the line and we’ll do the heavy work.”

“What about the AT-ST?” Cara asks. “Raiders is one thing, how are we handling a massive Imperial  _ walker?” _

“That’ll be you and I,” Din says. “... This is off the cuff. I don’t know every… detail. That’s for us to figure out, and if we  _ have  _ to scrap it, we can.”

Cara frowns. “What’s our success rate?” she mutters. “How much confidence do you have in this idea?”

Din pauses. “... Not that much,” he says. “But how much assurance did you get before they dropped you in?”

Cara stops, too, arms crossed. “Not much, no,” she says.

“You did it anyway because it mattered,” Din says, looking up at her. “These people matter.”

Cara looks at him, then nods. “Okay,” she says. She glances towards the baby, who squirms but doesn’t stir awake. “... Sure. Let’s do it.”

Din nods. “Tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

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**Author's Note:**

> Mando'a  
> Chaab - fear  
> Kyr'tsad - Death Watch  
> Mando'ad - son/daughter of Mandalore
> 
> The [discord](https://discord.gg/UwZuG6N)  
> Follow me on [tumblr](https://coffee-quill.tumblr.com/)


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